Watarase Keikoku Railway Fukasawa Bridge

Two spans set at an angle

The Watarase Keikoku Railway Fukasawa Bridge is a railway bridge of 1913 on the boundary between Shukumawari in Kurohonecho, Kiryu City, and Kamikanbai in Omamacho, Midori City, Gunma Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2009. It crosses the Fukasawa where that stream joins the Watarase River. The bridge is 30 metres long, single track, and built as two steel spans that do not line up with one another, so the whole makes a shallow dogleg.

The girders measure 13 metres and 16 metres, both plate girders to the government railway standard known as Tatsu No. 727, the longer one fitted with splice plates. Below are two abutments and a single pier. Midori City measures 28.75 metres from abutment face to abutment face and notes that the Ashio side abutment and the pier are mortared stone, original to the structure.

Sources differ on the build year. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 1913, Midori City gives 1912.

An abutment rebuilt after the typhoon

Only the Kiryu side abutment of the Watarase Keikoku Railway Fukasawa Bridge is concrete. Midori City records it as a rebuild of 1948 and connects it to Typhoon Kathleen, which struck the Kanto region the previous year; the operator's leaflet likewise describes it as postwar recovery work. Maker's plates on the girders are dated 1938 and 1939, showing that the spans themselves were replaced in the late 1930s, and the national record lists repairs in 1938, 1939 and 1948 following the original construction.

The bridge therefore carries Taisho era stonework, girders of the late 1930s and a postwar repair in one structure. The line's works were listed together on 2 November 2009, with public notice on the 19th, 38 of them between Kiryu and Mato. It was the first case in Japan of a whole line being registered across two prefectures, under the criterion of contribution to the historic landscape of the country, and the group became a Civil Engineering Heritage in 2016.

Thirty seconds from Motojuku

Coming from Kamikanbai towards Mato, the Watarase Keikoku Railway Fukasawa Bridge appears about two minutes out. From Motojuku towards Kiryu it takes barely thirty seconds. Riding over the deck, the dogleg is hard to feel; look forward along the train and you can catch the carriages changing heading slightly just before the far abutment.

To see the bridge itself, the view from lower in the valley is the one to find. Stone pier and concrete abutment stand side by side, different in colour and in texture, two periods holding up the same track. About 820 metres north lie the Shiroori Bridge and the Shiroori Tunnel, and some 3,100 metres south is the Third Kanbai Tunnel.

Visiting

The Watarase Keikoku Railway Fukasawa Bridge carries live track and the deck is closed to the public. It is seen from trains between Kamikanbai and Motojuku, or from public roads below the crossing. Kamikanbai is an unstaffed station that keeps its 1912 building and was the first structure on the line to be listed, in 2008, which makes it a convenient base for looking at both this bridge and the Kanbai tunnels.

Torokko services need a seat coupon in addition to the ordinary fare, 700 yen for adults and 350 yen for children from 1 September 2026. The one day free pass costs 1,880 yen for adults and 940 yen for children. Photography from the carriage is unrestricted; drone filming of trains and the track area is banned. Operating days are listed on the company website, and fares here were checked on 13 September 2026.