Kobe's Secret Subway
 

I recently re-discovered a subway that I studied many years ago and it had faded from my memory. While it is not an "official" subway by Japanese standards (whatever they are), it is undeniably a subway, since it has railway tracks, stations, and it is completely underground.

It is the Kobe Rapid Railway, a 3rd sector company. The city of Kobe holds 50% of the stock and and the other 50% is owned by the participating railways. The Kobe Rapid Railway has no rolling stock itself, but it owns the subway and employs the station personnel.

This subway has 9 stations, it is 7.6 km in total length, and trains of four railways run through it. Three railways are 1435 mm gauge and one is 1067 mm. It was built to eliminate congestion through the center of Kobe and it opened April 7, 1968.

Rather than trying to explain the physical configuration, you can see a layout here: http://www.pbase.com/image/39367492

According to the timetable, Hankyu and Hanshin trains run through the subway, then on the Sanyo railway to Himeji. The Sanyo railway's web site shows that most Sanyo trains run a short distance beyond the subway on Hankyu and Hanshin lines and some express trains run all the way to Osaka on Hanshin tracks. The fourth railway that uses the subway is the Kobe Electric Railway (Shintetsu). Since it has different gauge track, it is not connected to the other lines, except through a common station.

Kobe-kosoku Tetsudo
 

Hi ! I went to Kobe in 2003, attached photos are EMU for Kobe-kosoku line. :)

#2-1: HANSHIN Series7000 at HANKYU Sannomiya sta., Next stop is Kobe-kosoku line.
#2-2: HANSHIN Series5001 at HANSHIN Sannomiya sta., Next stop is Kobe-kosoku line.
#2-3: SANYO Series5000 at HANSHIN Sannomiya sta., Next stop is Kobe-kosoku line.
#2-4: KOBE Siei subway Series2000 at KOBE Siei Sannomiya sta., Not extend to Kobe-kosoku line.

HANKYU: http://at.hankyu.co.jp/english.html
HANSHIN: http://www.hanshin.co.jp/company/annai/english/
SANYO: http://www.sanyo-railway.co.jp/

KOBE Siei subway: http://www.city.kobe.jp/cityoffice/54/
KOBE railway map: http://www.city.kobe.jp/cityoffice/54/030/english.jpg

I wish I got to see Kobe. Those are pretty neat. Because they are different rail cars, do they have the same issue that other subways have in Jpn with the door hight being different, that is one some of the cars in the Osaka and Kyoto subways have a slight step up, to get in to the trains and are not flush to floor level as with US subways?

Issue? In all the years I've been writing about and using Japanese subways I've never noticed much of any difference in height between the platforms and the cars, although I suppose there must be some variations here and there.

I got on at Nijo-mae, and tripped. There was about a ten cm hight difference between the platform and the floor of the subway car. I just about went down on my face. Akiumi-kun told me to be careful because this was a common thing on the trains. I noticed this as well on Osaka's system too, depending on the train set that there were a hight distance.