Thursday, December 31st, 2009 | Posted by chottom

The railway line which leap through time … (as a park)

It was build in the remote 1922 and it served many decades to the Kobe citizens and Nipon Economy. The time has come though and the Harbor line (Chuo ward) was closed. For years it laid corroding left to the mercy of the elements. But one day the Kobe renovation plan was activated and the line (or at least part of it) was reborn as nice new park crossing the middle of Nada ward.

Today chottomatte team walked all the 1000 or so meters of the new/old Harbor line and documented every single step of the trip. Here are some of the photo documents.

The line/park starts (or finishes) almost from Nada JR station and ends at HAT Kobe (not far away from Kasuganomichi station – Hanshin line):

By the way this is how the area looked until recently – from Panoramio.

Nice 19 century like lamps are standing on the right side of the path:

Thanks to the new park I passed through neighborhood I never saw before:

Around every bridge (and they are three or four in all) there are small gardens and complex patterns of stairs. Also there are benches specially designed for physical exercises (like abdominals for example) with instructions how to perform the exercise (reminds me a little bit the circular park around Rokko island). This bench was without any particular exercise instructions though:

Further the line:

The left slope was quite green as well there were many small trees. In ten, fifteen years there will be a real small forest in the heart of Nada-ku:

A little bit further we found a real railway. Well not a real one bu I am sure during matsuri (festivals) there will be real little trains full with passengers running up and down the Harbor Line park line (I saw many of them before):

Toward the end we crossed route 2 (I think) through a big metal bridge. You can see some of the train electrical facilities still standing above it:

Finally (just before the end) we found remnants from the real Harbor line. As you can see the plan is that they will become part of a flower garden (Nice – it looks like the plants are sprouting directly from the metal railways):

One last view toward the transformed line: