The is a railway line in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, operated by the

West Japan Railway Company , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and ...

(JR West). It connects Ayabe and Higashi-Maizuru, the line beyond there being called the Obama Line connecting to Tsuruga.

Stations

*Local trains stop at every station and rapid trains at the stations marked "S".

History

The line opened in the autumn of 1904 to transport troops and

materiel Materiel (; ) refers to supplies, equipment, and weapons in military supply-chain management, and typically supplies and equipment in a commercial supply chain context. In a military context, the term ''materiel'' refers either to the spec ...

to the naval base and Maizuru-Higashi Port during the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

, which commenced in February of that year. Although built by the Japanese Government, it was initially leased to the Bantsuru Railway Co, which opened the Ayabe – Fukuchiyama section of what is now the Sanin Main Line the same year. The company was nationalised in 1907, the year the 2 km from Nishi-Maizuru to Maizuru Port opened. Passenger services operated on that branch between 1913 and 1924, and it closed in 1985. Nishi-Maizuru was also the junction for the 4 km to Naka-Maizuru which operated between 1919 and 1972. The line was electrified in 1999.

References

{{West Japan Railway Company Lines Lines of West Japan Railway Company Rail transport in Kyoto Prefecture 1067 mm gauge railways in Japan Railway lines opened in 1904