Tenryu Hamanako Railway

Tenryu Hamanako Railway

The Tenryu Hamanako Railway (天竜浜名湖鉄道) runs 67.7 kilometres from Kakegawa Station via Tenryu-Futamata to Shinjohara Station in Shizuoka Prefecture, and 36 of its stations, bridges, tunnels and other structures from the old national Futamata Line, completed in 1940, are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Shizuoka Prefecture, Agency for Cultural Affairs). Shizuoka Prefecture describes the whole line as a cultural property from end to end.

The line runs north of Lake Hamana with 39 stations, and a journey from Kakegawa to Shinjohara takes about two hours (Shizuoka Prefecture). It is run by Tenryu Hamanako Railway Co., Ltd., a company set up mainly by the prefecture and the towns along the line.

History of the Futamata Line

According to the railway, the first section, 12.9 kilometres from Kakegawa to Totoumi-Mori (now Enshu-Mori), opened in April 1935. Shinjohara to Mikkabi followed in December 1936 and Mikkabi to Kanasashi in April 1938, and the whole line from Kakegawa to Shinjohara opened in June 1940, when the Totoumi-Futamata engine depot was set up with twelve locomotives.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that the Futamata Line was built as a bypass for the Tokaido Main Line. Steam locomotives ran until March 1971. The line reopened as the Tenryu Hamanako Railway on March 15, 1987 (Tenryu Hamanako Railway).

The 36 Registered Structures

Registration came in two stages (Agency for Cultural Affairs). On December 11, 1998, five structures in the Tenryu-Futamata Station yard were registered: the locomotive turntable, the roundhouse, and the depot office, rest house and bathhouse. On January 26, 2011, 31 more followed, including station buildings, platforms, bridges, tunnels and water supply facilities.

In all there are 16 station buildings, platforms and shelters, 10 bridges and viaducts, 2 tunnels and 8 depot and water supply structures. Apart from the Kanda Tunnel of 1930, dug for the Komyo Electric Railway, all date from the opening years between 1935 and 1940 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Each structure is described on its own page. The railway notes that registering so many kinds of facilities together gives the line as a whole great significance.

Along the Line

On the Kakegawa side are the timber buildings of the three first stations, Sakuragi, Haranoya and Enshu-Mori, and steel girder bridges such as those over the Ota and Haranoya rivers (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tenryu Hamanako Railway).

Tenryu-Futamata Station, midway along the line, keeps a working turntable and a timber roundhouse together with the office, rest house and bathhouse of the old engine depot and its elevated water tank and pump house. To the west, the Tenryugawa Bridge, 403 metres long, is the line's longest bridge and its only truss bridge (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Toward Lake Hamana are the red-tiled stations of Kiga and Nishi-Kiga, the leaning-post shelter at Kanasashi, the round-arched Setoyama Bridge and the 663-metre Riki Tunnel, the longest on the line, all from 1936 to 1938 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tenryu Hamanako Railway).

Riding and Visiting

Trains are driver-only. Tickets at stations and fares on board are cash only, and IC transport cards are not accepted (Tenryu Hamanako Railway). A one-day pass for the whole line costs 1,950 yen for adults and 980 yen for children and is sold at the staffed stations of Kakegawa, Enshu-Mori, Tenryu-Futamata, Nishi-Kajima, Kanasashi, Mikkabi and Shinjohara.

Tenryu-Futamata Station runs guided tours of the turntable and roundhouse (Tenryu Hamanako Railway). A 2021 Hamamatsu City article reported daily tours at 1:50 p.m. on weekdays and at 10:50 a.m. and 1:50 p.m. on weekends and holidays, costing 350 yen for adults and 100 yen for children (250 yen for adults arriving by train). Check current times and fees with the railway.

Night turntable tours, which open the upstairs meeting room of the depot office, are also held; the July 2026 tour cost 2,000 yen per person, limited to 30 people by advance booking (Tenryu Hamanako Railway). Most stations are unstaffed working stations, and the bridges and tunnels are in daily use. Do not enter the tracks or railway land.

The Kita and Hamakita wards of Hamamatsu along the line became part of Hamana Ward in the city's reorganisation on January 1, 2024 (Hamamatsu City). The Agency's records still use the old ward names.