History
Otobaru Station opened on 21 September 1929 as the upper terminus of the 0.3-km Beppu Amusement Funicular (Kimura Kyūtarō, owner) on Mount Tateishi. The line was suspended as a non-essential service during the war in 1944 and reopened on 16 June 1950 under Beppu Cable Railway. Operation passed to Beppu International Tourism on 20 December 1954, then to Okamoto Manufacturing on 1 November 2003 (after which the resort was rebranded Beppu Wonder Rakutenchi). Service was halted on 1 December 2008 amid a failed sale to a Ōita-based hospitality group; it resumed on 18 July 2009 when Okamoto reopened the resort under the present 'Rakutenchi' name. On 1 June 2018 the cable operation was spun off into a separate Rakutenchi K.K. and transferred to the local Nishi Sekiyu group.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Otobaru is the upper of just two stations on a 0.3-km cable line (true distance 253.5 m) with a 558-permille maximum gradient. Although the Ministry-of-Land registry names the stations Unsenji and Otobaru after their localities, no name boards are displayed on site and timetables instead label them 'Rakutenchi-shimo' (lower) and 'Rakutenchi-ue' (upper). A car bogie manufactured in 1951 makes Rakutenchi's funicular cars the oldest active funicular bogies in Japan, though the car body itself was replaced in 1974 by Alna Kōki.