The Kyoto Line (京都線, Kyōto sen) is a Japanese railway line owned and operated by the Kintetsu Railway, a private railway operator. It connects the cities of Kyoto, Uji, and Nara, and competes with the Nara Line of West Japan Railway Company (JR-West), which also connects those cities.
Many trains on the line continue to the Nara Line to Kintetsu Nara Station or the Kashihara Line via Yamato-Saidaiji Station. The line also provides the through train services with the Karasuma Line of Kyoto Municipal Subway.
The Kyoto Line was built by Nara Electric Railway (奈良電気鉄道, Nara Denki Tetsudō) in November 1928 as dual track electrified at 600 V DC. The track between Kyoto Station and Horiuchi Station (present-day Kintetsu-Tambabashi Station) was placed on the site of a removed railway, which had been rerouted and is now called the JR Nara Line.[1]
The railway provided the through services to the lines of Kintetsu (originally, Osaka Electric Tramway) from the beginning. As of September 1961, Kintetsu was the largest shareholder of Nara Electric Railway with 980,000 shares out of the company's 1.9 million shares, while Keihan Electric Railway owned 710,000 shares. Through a deal between the two major shareholders, the shares owned by Keihan were transferred to Kintetsu in April 1962 and the company was merged into Kintetsu from October 1963.[1]
Between 1945 and 1968, there were through services with the Keihan Main Line using crossovers at Tambabashi.[2] The line voltage was increased to 1,500 V DC in 1969, and in 1988 through services with the Karasuma Line were introduced.[citation needed]
Trains down to
This article incorporates material from the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia.