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Kumamoto City Transportation Bureau line2 min read

Tasaki Line

田崎線

The Tasaki Line (田崎線, Tasaki-sen) is a short, 0.5-kilometre tramway route of the Kumamoto City Tram (熊本市電), the street-tramway network operated by the Kumamoto City Transportation Bureau (熊本市交通局) in Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyūshū.

Lying entirely within Nishi-ku, it runs from Kumamoto-Eki-mae (the stop in front of Kumamoto Station, where it joins the network's trunk line) to Tasaki-bashi. Built to 1,435 mm standard gauge and electrified at 600 V DC with overhead catenary, it is laid as double track between Kumamoto-Eki-mae and Nihongiguchi and partly as single track between Nihongiguchi and Tasaki-bashi. Counting its termini, it has three stops, and it operates under Japan's Tramways Act (軌道法).

KumamotoNishiChuo2 km
Route of the Tasaki Line · Kumamoto · Boundaries: MLIT / GSI / Japan Post

History

At Kumamoto-Eki-mae the line connects with Kumamoto Station, served by JR Kyūshū's Kagoshima Main Line, Hōhi Main Line, Misumi Line and the Kyushu Shinkansen. Its three stops are numbered from the Tasaki-bashi end: Tasaki-bashi (no. 1), Nihongiguchi (no. 2) and Kumamoto-Eki-mae (no. 3), the last being the line's starting point (0.0 km). The network's A route, running between Tasaki-bashi and Kengun-machi, serves the line every four to seven minutes.

The Tasaki Line opened on 24 December 1959. On 26 April 2010 the entire line was converted to a "side reservation" configuration, in which the tram tracks were shifted to one side of the roadway so that the running way, the carriageway for road traffic and the footway sat side by side rather than the tracks running down the centre of the street.

In 2006, in step with the project to grade-separate the Kagoshima and Hōhi main lines and to remodel the east-side station plaza, Kumamoto City proposed bringing the tram into the new JR Kumamoto Station building to improve transfers, and reached agreement with the prefecture and other bodies that year. In September 2013 it published a layout plan for the east plaza under which the tram would branch from the existing route, cross the plaza, enter the ground floor of the new station building, and reverse out by a switchback before returning to the main line, with the trackway envisaged as a transit mall that pedestrians could cross freely.

The station-entry plan was ultimately dropped. Concerns about the safety of pedestrians and cyclists, and about restricting free movement across the station plaza, could not be resolved, and in February 2015 the Mayor of Kumamoto, Kazufumi Ōnishi, told a plenary session of the Kumamoto City Assembly that the city would abandon the idea of taking the tram into the station building and would revise the plaza plan. The city would look instead at improving transfers between the tram and buses and taxis.

On 26 July 2024 a tram derailed near a set of points while running on the section between Tasaki-bashi and Nihongiguchi, and the stretch between Kumamoto-Eki-mae and Tasaki-bashi was suspended until 28 July.

Stations on this line

3 stations tracked on the map, listed alphabetically. Select any to read its page.

Timeline
  • 195924 December: the Tasaki Line opens.
  • 201026 April: the entire line is converted to a side-reservation configuration, with the tracks shifted to one side of the roadway.
  • 2013September: the city publishes a plan for the east station plaza under which the tram would enter the new JR Kumamoto Station building and reverse out by a switchback.
  • 2015February: Mayor Kazufumi Ōnishi tells the Kumamoto City Assembly that the city will abandon the plan to run the tram into the JR Kumamoto Station building and revise the plaza plan.
  • 202426 July: a tram derails near a set of points on the Tasaki-bashi–Nihongiguchi section; service between Kumamoto-Eki-mae and Tasaki-bashi is suspended.
  • 202428 July: the suspended section between Kumamoto-Eki-mae and Tasaki-bashi reopens.

Sources

Last updated 16 October 2026.

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