The Oigawa Railway in Shizuoka sits right on the Tokaido corridor between Tokyo and Nagoya, and it packs nearly every railway attraction you can think of into one railway: heavily touristed SL steam trains and Thomas the Tank Engine services, Japan’s only working Abt rack railway, Okuoi Kojo Station out in the middle of a lake, and Omori Station, ranked the No. 2 secret station in all of Japan. As a Taiwanese traveler I had one more reason to come: the Ikawa Line, which runs deep into the mountains, is a sister railway to Taiwan’s Alishan Forest Railway, and riding it felt strikingly familiar.
Let me give you my conclusion up front: the SL steam trains are the only real highlight of the Oigawa Main Line. If they are not running the day you visit, the main line is a fairly ordinary local railway — the part genuinely worth traveling for is the Ikawa Line beyond it.
▍ Oigawa Railway — at a glance
LOCATION
Shizuoka, Japan
(between Tokyo and Nagoya)
TYPE
Scenic tourist railway
A must-ride for rail fans
ACCESS
Shinkansen to Shizuoka
then the JR Tokaido Main Line to Kanaya Station (about 30 min)
SUGGESTED STAY
2 days / 1 night recommended
(one-day sprint: about 14 hours)
NOTES & TAKEAWAYS
· Route: Oigawa Main Line (Kanaya–Senzu) + Ikawa Line (Senzu–Ikawa); a bus bridge currently links the two lines across the suspended section
· Planning: a one-day run means catching the 7:23 am first train from Kanaya; better as 2 days with a night at Kawaneonsen-Sasamado or Sessokyo Onsen
· Ikawa Line: the real highlight; trains are few, and only 2 a day reach the Ikawa terminus; sister railway to Taiwan’s Alishan Forest Railway
· Okuoi Kojo Station: the famous station in the middle of a lake; a cafe above the station; the viewpoint across the bridge is a 20-30 minute walk
· Omori Station: Japan’s No. 2 secret station, deep in the mountains; bear activity reported in 2025 — weigh the risk before getting off
· Abt locomotives: rack-rail locomotives are coupled on for the steep section between Abt Ichishiro and Nagashima Dam — the coupling itself is worth watching
⚡ Without the SL steam trains, the Oigawa Main Line is a fairly ordinary local railway — the Ikawa Line is what deserves your time
⚡ At Ikawa Station, the right direction is the far side of the road: 300-400 m to the Ikawa Dam, its reservoir, and the exhibition hall; walking to the village for lunch is the long way around
1. The Oigawa Railway at a glance
The Oigawa Railway starts at Kanaya Station on the south side of Shizuoka and follows the Oi River deep into the Southern Alps. The line was originally built to haul equipment for dam and power-plant construction, later carried timber out of the mountains, and eventually reinvented itself as a privately run tourist railway. In practice, “the Oigawa Railway” means two connected lines: the Oigawa Main Line (Kanaya to Senzu) and the Ikawa Line (Senzu to Ikawa), about 65 km in total.
One thing to know before you go (as of 2025): part of the line is out of service, and you have to transfer to a shuttle bus between Ieyama and Senzu, which makes the trip a little more complicated than the map suggests. While planning the trip I was thoroughly confused by the pile of station names; once on the ground, the flow turned out to be simple — you just keep moving from Kanaya deeper into the mountains.
2. Getting there and planning your trip
How to get there
You only need to remember one place: Kanaya Station. It is both the starting point of the Oigawa Railway and a stop on the JR Tokaido Main Line — the two railways simply use different platforms in the same station, so the transfer could hardly be easier. A local train from Shizuoka reaches Kanaya in about 30 minutes; coming from Tokyo or Nagoya, take the Shinkansen to Shizuoka and change there. Access, in short, is easy.
One hard day, or an easy two
Covering both the Main Line and the Ikawa Line in a single day is possible, but it is a stretch: my son and I left Shizuoka at 6:30 am and did not sit down to dinner back in Shizuoka until after 8 pm. The whole plan hinges on catching the 7:23 am first train out of Kanaya. The real bottleneck is the Ikawa Line — only about 5 or 6 trains a day run between Senzu and Sessokyo Onsen, and just 2 of them continue all the way to the Ikawa terminus.
My recommendation is two days and one night, staying midway at Kawaneonsen-Sasamado or Sessokyo Onsen. If you would rather not be chained to the timetable, renting a car in Shizuoka is a workable alternative.
3. The Main Line, and the bus that bridges the gap
The early train was a two-car local, carrying a few commuting students and a dozen-odd tourists like us. As it pulled away I found myself guessing: all of these people would surely change to the bus at Ieyama, but how many would get off at Okuoi Kojo Station? Would anyone actually get off at Omori, the No. 2 secret station — and if someone did, should I follow? Groggy from the early start, I watched the train slide into Ieyama about 30 minutes later.
No trains currently run between Ieyama and Senzu, so the journey breaks here for the first time: you board a local bus in the plaza outside the station, and about 45 minutes later you are at Senzu. Senzu is noticeably livelier — this was the junction between the two lines, and it is where the Ikawa Line begins.
4. The Ikawa Line: the heart of the Oigawa Railway
Whatever you measure — how deep it takes you (the Southern Alps), railway character (a true mountain railway), scenery (one distinctive station after another) — the Ikawa Line clearly beats the Main Line. It is a narrow-gauge mountain railway like Taiwan’s Alishan Forest Railway, and the two are officially sister railways. The carriages are not remotely luxurious; they are old and nostalgic, some windows still open by hand, and some trains carry one open-air carriage with nothing but a railing between you and the forest.
Station staff and conductors along the line are mostly warm and friendly — even the track-maintenance crews out in the forest stop what they are doing and wave as the train goes by.
The Abt rack section
The stretch between Abt Ichishiro and Nagashima Dam is the steepest on the Ikawa Line. To climb it, the train stops at Abt Ichishiro and couples on an Abt rack locomotive. The Abt system is built for steep grades: a toothed third rail runs down the middle of the track, and the locomotive gears its way up and down on it. Trains pause at both stations for the coupling and uncoupling, and the operation itself is half the fun: nearly everyone steps off to watch.
5. Omori Station: Japan’s No. 2 secret station
Japanese rail fans have a whole culture of “secret stations” (hikyo-eki) — stations deep in the mountains that no road reaches, with no trace of people around, accessible only by train. There are even expert rankings. In the latest ranking by Takanobu Ushiyama, author of “Hikyo-eki e iko!” (“Let’s Visit Secret Stations”), Omori Station is No. 2 in all of Japan, behind only Koboro Station, with perfect scores for both remoteness and difficulty of access. When the train stopped there, only one thought crossed my mind: this station looks like a ruin — why do trains still stop here?
A year earlier I had visited Kowada Station on the Iida Line, ranked No. 3 — the air of adventure around these forsaken stations is exactly what draws me to them. When the train stopped I did pick up my bag and hesitate. But bear sightings and attacks were being reported all over Japan in 2025, and deep in the mountains it would have been just the two of us, father and son — not a risk to wave away. No one else got off; in that split second I stayed in my seat, and the train rolled on toward the terminus.
6. Ikawa Station: 90 minutes at the end of the line
We reached the Ikawa terminus around 11 am. It is not an unstaffed station, but there is nothing around it — no shops, only vending machines. Our train would turn back at 12:20 pm, which left us about an hour and a half. The map showed the nearest village 1.7 km away, about a 30-minute walk, with a rest stop marked in it. With no time to dither, we set off on foot.
The “rest stop” turned out to be a simple noodle shop. We told the owner as we walked in that we had a train to catch and asked him to cook fast, bolted it down, and race-walked back — sliding onto the train more or less as it was about to leave. Only later, looking at the map again, did I realize we had picked the wrong direction: 300-400 meters the other way along the road would have brought us to the Ikawa Dam, its reservoir, and the exhibition hall — a much better laid-out area to look around, probably with other places to eat as well.
7. Okuoi Kojo Station: the station in the middle of a lake
We left Ikawa at 12:20 pm and reached Okuoi Kojo Station, the signature stop of the Ikawa Line, at 1:07 pm. The next trains back were at 3:23 pm and 3:59 pm (the last one), both connecting to the 5:45 pm bus — which gave us roughly two to three hours here.
Okuoi Kojo is famous for a single image: a station standing in the middle of a lake. There is a cafe on the slope above it, and that is where we started — coffee first, looking down over the line. Then we strolled out along the rail bridge, taking in the station and the water from different angles, and finally crossed the bridge and climbed to the viewpoint on the hill opposite. This is the classic spot for the full view of Okuoi Kojo Station: about 20-30 minutes one way, with some stairs, but an ordinary walkway with nothing hazardous about it. Then back the way we came, and onto the train.
8. The time cost of a one-day trip
We were back at Senzu by 4:30 pm with over an hour before the bus, so we rested at a rather good coffee shop across from the station. Then it was the same route in reverse — bus to Ieyama, Main Line back to Kanaya — arriving close to 7:30 pm; by the time we sat down to dinner in Shizuoka it was well past 8. That is the price of covering the Oigawa Railway in a single day. We went home more than satisfied — but if you take just one thing from this article, make it this: get the Ikawa Line into your plan.
