The Itō Line ( ja, 伊東線, ) is a railway line owned by the
East Japan Railway Company
The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters ar ...
(JR East) which connects Atami and Itō Stations, along the east coast of
Izu Peninsula
The is a large mountainous peninsula with a deeply indented coastline to the west of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of the island of Honshu, Japan. Formerly known as Izu Province, Izu peninsula is now a part of Shizuoka Prefecture. The penins ...
in
Shizuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
. From Itō, the line continues south to Shimoda under the privately owned and operated Izu Kyūkō Line.
Station list
Rolling stock
* Local trains
**
E231 series
The is an electric multiple unit (EMU) train type used for commuter and outer-suburban services operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) in Japan since 2000.
Design
Trains were manufactured by Tokyu Car Corporation, Kawasaki Heavy In ...
E233 series
The is a commuter and suburban electric multiple unit (EMU) train type developed by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) from the earlier E231 series and the E531 series design. The first train was introduced in December 2006 for use on the C ...
10-car EMUs (Ito・Tokaido・Ueno-Tokyo Lines)
** Izukyu 2100 series 7-car EMUs (Ito・Izukyu Lines)
** Izukyu 8000 series 3-car or 6-car coupled EMUs (Ito・Izukyu Lines)
* Limited express
** 185 series 7-car or 10-car EMUs ('' Odoriko'')
** E257-2000 series (''Odoriko'')
** E261 series '' Saphir Odoriko''
** Izukyu 2100 series 7-car or 8-car EMUs ( ''Resort Odoriko'')
* Sightseeing trains
** 651-1000 series 4-car EMUs (''Izu Craile'')
*** A rebuilt four-car 651 series resort train set named '' Izu Craile''( ja, 伊豆クレイル, links=no) entered service on the Ito Line in the summer of 2016. The name is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words The service ran until June 28, 2020, as JR East decided that with the introduction of Saphir Odoriko services, the Izu Craile service would be surplus to requirements.
Train service
Most of the local trains are only run between Atami Station and Izukyū Shimoda station via Izu Kyūkō Line.
A few local trains with Green Cars departing from Itō Station enter the Tokaido Main Line, with most of them entering the Ueno-Tokyo Line, and the farthest terminals are Utsunomiya Station or Kagohara Station. As such, Itō Station is the most southern terminal of the Ueno-Tokyo Line.
History
Initial plans called for the
Japanese National Railways
The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.
Network Railways
As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pre ...
(JNR) to build a
spur line
A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line.
Industrial spur
An industr ...
linking Atami on the Tokaido Main Line with Shimoda. However, funding was limited in the 1930s due to a combination of a tight
fiscal policy
In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection ( taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy. The use of government revenue expenditures to influence macroeconomic variabl ...
under
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, and a number of technical issues. The projected route of the Itō line along the mountainous east coast of the Izu Peninsula required numerous tunnels and bridges. Workers digging a tunnel near encountered problems with underground
hot spring
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
s, similar to that experienced in the construction of the
Tanna Tunnel
is a railroad tunnel in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan operated by JR Central’s Tōkaidō Main Line. This 7.8 km long tunnel shortened the trunk route between Tokyo and Kobe by omitting a detour round the mountains between Atami and Numazu. ...
, which had recently been completed years later than originally projected and far over budget.
On March 30, 1935, the initial 8.7 km section of the Itō Line linking Atami with was opened. The second (8.3 km) section from Ajiro to was opened on December 15, 1938. Both sections were electrified at 1,500 V DC when opened. Further work was delayed, and then canceled due to the outbreak of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
CTC signalling was commissioned in 1958, and the Atami to Kinomiya section was duplicated in 1968. The entire line was originally designed to be built as double track, and earthworks were undertaken on this basis, including tunneling, but to date only the first 1.2 km of the line has been duplicated.
Construction south of Itō resumed in 1961, when the private-sector
Tokyu Corporation
The is a Japanese multinational '' keiretsu'' (conglomerate) holding company headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. Its main operation is , a wholly owned subsidiary operating railways in the Greater Tokyo Area.
History
The oldest predecessor ...
acquired the rights to complete the line to Shimoda and established the Izukyu Corporation to manage construction and operations of this section.