A Hanshin Railway 5500 series train

Corporate headquarters of Hanshin

Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (阪神電気鉄道株式会社, Hanshin Denki-tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha^?) is a Japanese private railway company of Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group that links Osaka and Kobe. It also owns the Hanshin Tigers baseball team.

The second character for Osaka (大阪) and the first character for Kobe (神戸) combine to form the company name, 阪神, which can be read Han-shin.

IC cards (PiTaPa and ICOCA) are accepted when taking trains.

Rail lines

The railway system consists of one trunk line and two branches:

• Main Line (本線) (Umeda – Motomachi, 32.1 km)
• Nishi-Osaka Line (西大阪線) (Amagasaki – Nishikujō, 6.3 km)
• Mukogawa Line (武庫川線) (Mukogawa – Mukogawa-danchimae, 1.7 km)

The Nishi-Osaka Line will be renamed the Hanshin Namba Line (阪神なんば線, the Hanshin Namba Line^?) when the line is extended from Nishikujō Station to Kintetsu Namba Station in spring, 2009.

History

• June 12, 1899: Settsu Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (摂津電気鉄道株式会社, Settsu Denki-tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha^?) was established.
• July 7, 1899: The company was renamed "Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd."
• April 7, 1968: Kobe Rapid Railway was opened and joint operation with Sanyo Electric Railway was started.
• February 15, 1998: Joint operation with Sanyo Electric Railway of limited expresses service between Umeda and Himeji was started.
• June 20, 2006: Hankyu Holdings, Inc. completed its purchase of a controlling interest in Hanshin in a transaction valued at about $2.2 billion.^[1]

References

1. ^ "UPDATE 2-Hankyu takes over fellow railway operator Hanshin". Reuters (2006-06-20). Retrieved on 2006-06-20.

External links

• Hankyu Hanshin Holdings portal site (in Japanese)
  • Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group index page (in English)
  • Hanshin Electric Railway (in Japanese)
  • Hanshin Group (in Japanese)
  • Corporate Profile (in English)

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Hanshin Railway