The is a rural, regional

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

line of

Central Japan Railway Company is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and occasionally as JR Tokai (). The term ''Tōkai'' refers to the southern portion of Central Japan, ...

(JR Central) in

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, connecting Matsusaka station in Matsusaka and Ise-Okitsu station in Tsu. The line takes its name from the

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

characters of the cities of and . Although this line was planned to connect them, the section from Ise-Okitsu to Nabari was never built, due to the prior completion of the present Kintetsu

Osaka Line The is a railway line in Japan owned by Kintetsu Railway, connecting Osaka and Mie Prefecture via Nara Prefecture. The line is the longest double-tracked railway of non-JR operators. Together with the Nagoya Line, this line forms the route for ...

History

The section between Matsusaka and Ieki opened in stages between 1929 and 1931. The first section to Gongemmae opened in 1929, then to Isegi in 1930, and to Ieki in 1931. The line was eventually extended to Ise-Okitsu in 1935. Freight services ceased in 1965. The closure of the line has been discussed multiple times, with the first taking place during the

deficit 83 lines Deficit 83 Lines (赤字83線, Akaji-Hachijyusansen) is a list of railway lines owned by Japanese National Railways (JNR) proposed for abolishment or transferring to third sector companies as it has fulfilled its goals in 1968. Criteria The crit ...

movement in 1968 and the second

specified local lines The were the railway lines specified by Japanese National Railways (JNR) under the 1980 to be closed. All of 83 lines were closed and substituted by buses or transferred to other railway operators between 1983 and 1990. Selection Article 8 of ...

selection of lines, but was never closed due to the poor road conditions in the area. The closure was discussed again in October 2009, when

Typhoon Melor Typhoon Melor, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Nona, was a powerful tropical cyclone that struck the Philippines in mid-December 2015. The twenty-seventh named storm and the eighteenth typhoon of the annual typhoon season, Melor killed 51 p ...

struck the area and washed out over 40 sections between and , but the line reopened on March 26, 2016 with help from passing municipalities.

Former connecting line

* Ise-Kawaguchi station - The Chusei Railway operated a gauge line to Hisai on the

Kintetsu Nagoya Line The is a railway line owned and operated by the Kintetsu Railway, a Japanese private railway company, connecting Nagoya and Ise Nakagawa Station in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture via Kuwana, Yokkaichi, Suzuka, Tsu municipalities along the Is ...

between 1925 and 1943.

Service

The Meishō Line is a rural line in the inland of Mie Prefecture. There are eight return workings a day. All trains are Local driver-only services and stop at every station. There are no limited-stop services such as rapids. Services are nearly always formed of single-car KiHa 11 series DMUs, though two cars may occasionally be used during events or busy seasons.

Stations

All stations are located in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meisho Line Lines of Central Japan Railway Company Rail transport in Mie Prefecture 1067 mm gauge railways in Japan