Famous Minor Branch Lines The most prominent branch lines with few trains in operation are the Okawa branch line (Anzen-Ookawa) of the Tsurumi Line and the Motoyama branch line (Jyakuda-Nagato Motoyama) of the Onoda Line. Both of these lines only offer morning and evening train service, making it difficult to arrange an itinerary. Speaking of trains that run only in the morning and evening, the Chikko Line (Oe to Higashi-Nagoya Port) of Nagoya Railroad is also well known. However, not all of them are famous.
Similarly, the Tokaido Main Line also has an example of a detouring separate line that was constructed to alleviate the gradient. This is the Ogaki to Sekigahara section. The map shows that in addition to the track going straight from Ogaki to Sekigahara, there is another track that goes around to the north. This separate line, like the earlier Fujishiro line, is exclusively for down trains. This is effectively the main line, which is used not only by freight trains but also by the down express trains “Shirasagi” and “Hida”. What is different from the Fujishiro Line is that there are no regular trains passing through here. So, if you have only traveled between Ogaki and Maibara by regular trains, you will miss the separate line. Until 1986, there was a Shin-Tarui station in the middle of the detouring separate line, but naturally, only down trains come here. To get to Ogaki from Shin-Tarui, one had to take a regular down train to Sekigahara and then turn around on an up train. I wonder how many people actually had the time to do that. Currently, regular trains running between Ogaki and Sekigahara pass through Tarui on both the up and down trains. And since the entire route via Tarui is double track, there are physically “two down lines and one up line. If you take a down limited express train, a local train, and some kind of up train, you can conquer all of them.
© Source travel watch