Hidden Scenic “Kurobe Route” To Be Open to Public

October 18, 2018

Tokyo- Kansai Electric Power Co. and the Toyama prefectural government have agreed to open to the public a route between Keyakidaira Station, the terminal station of the Kurobe Gorge Railway, and the famed Kurobe Dam, as early as fiscal 2024, they said Wednesday.

The 18-kilometer Kurobe route, which connects the station in the city of Kurobe with the dam in the town of Tateyama, in the central Japan prefecture is now used by Kansai Electric to transport construction materials.

"To open (the route) to the public is a long-cherished dream," Toyama Governor Takakazu Ishii said. "I hope to promote the brand of the Tateyama-Kurobe region."

The Kurobe route was established in 1963 after difficult construction work by the electricity supplier to develop the Kurobe River as a power source.

The route includes a tunnel featured in Japanese author Akira Yoshimura's nonfiction work "Konetsu Zuido" (High-temperature Tunnel) and the Kurobegawa No. 4 Power Plant. Visitors take a slim-gauge train, an incline railcar and a trolley bus to get to the dam.

Currently, Kansai Electric accepts some 2,000 tourists annually for the route from applicants. The prefectural government had demanded that the power firm open the journey to the public.

The mountainous area is very popular among tourists.

In the year that ended in March, the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, a tourist route that passes through the Hida Mountains, also known as the Northern Alps, attracted some 930,000 visitors from in and outside the country.

On Wednesday, Ishii and Kansai Electric President Shigeki Iwane signed an agreement in Tokyo to open the route to the public.

"I want many people to feel Kurobe," Iwane said at the signing ceremony. The power firm and the prefectural government plan to accept up to about 10,000 visitors per year on the route.

Kansai Electric is now set to proceed with work to prevent a cave-in accident. Jiji Press