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Chichibu-Tama-Kai NP, Tokyo
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御嶽汁 began as the railway’s New Year’s Day 2013 treat for shrine-bound hikers, combining local pork and vegetables with Sawanoi sake lees. In 2015, its recipe became 11,600 school lunches in Ome.
The route rises 423.6 m in just 1.107 km, reaching the upper station in about 6 minutes. Its average incline is 22° and its steepest pitch 25°—the railway describes it as Kanto’s steepest cable car.
The green Musashi and red Mitake cars are attached to opposite ends of one haul cable. As the motor pulls, one climbs while the other descends, so each car helps counterbalance its partner.
At the mid-slope passing point, no movable switches are needed: each car’s grooved wheel grips one rail while its smooth wheel crosses the cable gap. Their opposite wheel arrangements guide them past each other.
The cars themselves are built at a 22° angle to match the route’s average incline, and the cabin floor is arranged like steps. That’s why the inside looks more like a staircase than a normal train.
This is more than a hikers’ ride: children who live in the mountain settlement use the cable car for their everyday journey to school in the foothills. It is part of local life, not just a scenic shortcut.
There’s no driver aboard either car: the railway is operated from a control room at the upper station. A conductor rides in each car, watching the track and ready to stop if wildlife wanders onto it.
A snapped haul rope would trigger one of the line’s 4 brake systems: a mechanical clamp grips the rail automatically when cable tension disappears. Staff also walk the full route each week to inspect the equipment.
The cable railway began service on New Year’s Day, 1935. In 1944, wartime metal requisition forced it to stop running; service returned in 1951, after the line’s equipment had been taken out of use.
The track is 1,049 mm wide—not the usual 1,067 mm narrow-gauge width. In 1991, replacing the old rails with heavier ones made the measured gap 18 mm narrower, giving this line its own quirky gauge.
The cars once carried the names 日出 (Sunrise) and 青空 (Blue Sky). For an 80th-anniversary redesign in 2014, the railway renamed them 武蔵 (Musashi) and 御嶽 (Mitake).
Some railway employees first rode this very cable car on school field trips as children. Years later, they found themselves working on the mountain railway they once knew as passengers.
When snow piles higher than the rail tops, the cable car may have to stop—and staff clear the line by hand. The railway’s own employees describe it as an all-hands winter chore.
