|
A number of visitors flock to Kobe in Japan every year not just for sightseeing but to also see the marvelous revival that the city has gone through post the killer earthquake in 1995. Kobe boasts of one of the best transportation infrastructures in Japan. Transportation in Kobe has developed on a major scale making getting to Kobe by air , road, sea and rail an easy task. The Kobe Municipal subway is an apt example of this tremendous development in Kobe transportation infrastructure. The Municipal Subway in Kobe is one of the two rapid transit systems in Kobe. One is Kobe Rapid Transit Railway or Kobe Kosuku Tetsudo, which is 7.6 Kilometers long. The other one is the Kobe Municipal Subway System. This municipal subway in Kobe is 21.7 Kilometers long with approximately one-third of the system underground. The part of the municipal subway that lays underground was built between 1977 and 1983. However the earthquake of 1995 caused great damage at the Shin Nagata, Kamisawa and Sannomiya Stations of the Kobe Municipal Subway . The damage was nonetheless not as much as it was in the case of Kobe Rapid Transit Railway. Hence train service in the Kobe Municipal Subway was efficiently restored just one month after the earthquake, excepting in Sannomiya Station. This Station remained closed for some more time due to the structural damaged caused to it. The Kobe Municipal Subway has two lines now that support a huge amount of daily commuting in Kobe. These lines are: - Seishin-YamateLine (Seishin-Chuo-Shin-Kobe) links the central district and suburbs of Kobe. This line is sometimes also called U-Line after its shape on the map of the line. This line is operated jointly with the Hokushin-Kyuko Railways that runs between Shin-Kobe to Tanigami.
- The other line in the Kobe Municipal Subway is Kaigan Line. This starts from Shin-Nagata and ends at Sannomiya –Hanadokeimae. This line is 7.9 Kilometers long and trains on this line are propelled by linear motors. This line became functional from 7 th July 2001. Some of the major stations on this line are Minato Motomachi Station, Harborland Station, Misaki-Koen Station and Komagabayashi station.
Kobe Municipal Subway is one of the many rapid transit system subways in Japan. Some otherworld famous rapid transit systems in Japan are Tokyo subway, an integral part of the world's most extensive rapid transit system in a single metropolitan area and the Osaka Municipal Subway.
|
