Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route is a famous mountain sightseeing route between Tateyama, Toyama and Omac hi, Nagano, Japan. The whole route opened in June 1, 1971.

The route is just 37km in length, but the vertical interval is as large as 1,975m. It takes 7 different public transports with 5 different modes, namely funicular, bus, trolleybus, aerial tramway, and walking.

The route is carefully built not to damage the nature around. Consequently, three lines go entirely under tunnels. (This is also to protect the lines from snow.) Among them, two are trolleybus lines. Trolleybuses are all gone in the country, except of these two lines, still used here as they don't exhaust gas. The route goes through Tateyama of Hida Mountains with a lot of scenic sites, including Kurobe dam. Some stations have hotels around them, and are the bases of mountain climbing or trekking.