Five Rare Rides to Kurobe Dam On the Alpine Route, you will take six different vehicles, including a cable car, ropeway, and trolleybus, but on the Canyon Route, you will take five different vehicles: a construction trolley car, a shaft elevator, a storage battery locomotive, an incline, and a bus. The Canyon Route, on the other hand, is a five-vehicle ride: a construction trolley, a shaft elevator, a storage battery locomotive, an incline, and a bus. Because the route is almost entirely in tunnels, the scenery from the train windows may not be the most scenic, but at the viewpoints that appear here and there, visitors can see the rugged nature of the Kurobe Gorge and the Northern Alps, which they have not been able to see before. After assembling at the Kurobe Gorge Railway’s Unazuki Station, the starting point of the tour, we will first undergo a personal identification and personal belongings inspection. Because the canyon route includes a power plant operated by Kansai Electric Power Company, the checks are more stringent than those for ordinary sightseeing tours, in part to ensure safety. To get to Keyakidaira Station, the starting point of the canyon route, visitors take the Kurobe Gorge Railway’s trolley car. It was mid-October on the day of our visit, and we were expecting to see vivid autumn leaves, but the forest was lush and green, perhaps due to the intense heat. Arriving at Keyakidaira Station in a little over an hour, we remained on the platform and donned helmets. We waited for the construction trolley train to arrive, boarded it, and proceeded through the tunnel for about 500 meters. Even though it is for construction, the carriages are the windowed carriages of the Kurobe Gorge Railway, so this is just the beginning. When the trolley stops, we arrive at the entrance to the shaft elevator in the lower part of the Zelkova flat. Originally, a trolley train was considered to connect to the Kurobe River No. 4 Power Plant, but the difference in elevation was too great, so a 200-meter elevator that can also accommodate freight cars was installed at this location. A short walk from where the elevator descends gives access to the shaft observation platform. Battery-powered locomotives were used from the top of the Zelkova flat to the Kurobe River No. 4 power station. Passengers board the carriages, which are one size smaller than the trolley car they had been riding until then, and proceed through the tunnel on the upper dedicated track.
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