The Yōrō Line ( 養老線 , Yōrō-sen ) is a railway line of a Japanese private railway operator Yōrō Railway ( 養老鉄道 , Yōrō Tetsudō ) . The line traverses the northeastern side of the Yōrō Mountains and connects Kuwana Station in Kuwana , Mie Prefecture and Ibi Station in Ibigawa , Gifu Prefecture .
8-450: The northern portion of the Ōgaki section is locally and unofficially called Ibi Line ( 揖斐線 , Ibi-sen ) , as Ōgaki is a reversing station. Kintetsu Railway , one of largest private railway companies in Japan, owns the tracks and rolling stocks of the line whereon Yōrō Railway (II), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kintetsu operated trains until 2018. Initially steam powered, the line
16-403: Is a railway operation in which a train is required to switch its direction of travel in order to continue its journey. While this may be required purely from an operations standpoint, it is also ideal for climbing steep gradients with minimal need for tunnels and heavy earthworks. For a short distance (corresponding to the middle leg of the letter "Z"), the direction of travel is reversed, before
24-604: The Kintetsu Nagoya Line was regauged to 1,435 mm ( 4 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ), the Kintetsu standard which enables through trains to Osaka, but the Yōrō Line remained 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ) partly due to through freight trains to the then Japanese National Railways (JNR) at Ōgaki and Kuwana, because the line is shorter between these stations than JNR lines and used as
32-405: The grades required are discontinuous. Civil engineers can generally find a series of shorter segments going back and forth up the side of a hill more easily and with less grading than they can a continuous grade, which must contend with the larger scale geography of the hills to be surmounted. Zig zags suffer from a number of limitations: If the wagons in a freight train are marshaled poorly, with
40-507: The operator has changed several times, namely in 1929 the Ise Electric Railway ( 伊勢電気鉄道 , Ise Denki Tetsudō ) , in 1936 Yōrō Dentetsu ( 養老電鉄 ) , in 1940 Sangu Kyūkō Railway ( 参宮急行電鉄 , Sangū Kyūkō Dentetsu ) , in 1941 Kansai Kyūkō Railway ( 関西急行鉄道 , Kansai Kyūkō Tetsudō ) , finally in 1944 Kinki Nippon railway ( 近畿日本鉄道 , Kinki Nippon Tetsudō ) which is the present Kintetsu. Following typhoon damage in 1959,
48-647: The original direction is resumed. Some switchbacks do not come in pairs, and the train may then need to travel backwards for a considerable distance. A location on railways constructed by using a zig-zag alignment at which trains must reverse direction to continue is a reversing station . One of the best examples is the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway , a UNESCO World Heritage Site railway in India, which has six full zig zags and three spirals . Zig zags tend to be cheaper to construct because
56-491: The shortcut. With accumulating deficit, Kintetsu Corporation decided to split off the operation of the Yōrō Line in 2007. Local governments along the line made an agreement of financial aid to the Yōrō Railway until 2010. At Kuwana At Ōgaki This article about a Japanese railway line–related topic is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Zig zag (railway) A railway zig zag or switchback
64-437: Was constructed by Yōrō Railway (I) and opened in 1913 between Yōrō - Ōgaki - Ikeno , in 1919 present line was completed with extensions of Yōrō - Kuwana and Ikeno - Ibi . In 1922 Yōrō Railway merged with Ibi River Electric ( 揖斐川電気 , Ibigawa Denki ) and the following year the line was electrified (1500 V DC). In 1928 its railway was transferred to Yōrō Electric Railway ( 養老電気鉄道 , Yōrō Denki Tetsudō ) . Since then
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