Enoshima Electric Railway

Where it runs. The Enoshima Electric Railway — universally shortened to Enoden — is a ten-kilometre single-track line linking Fujisawa and Kamakura along the Shōnan coast of Kanagawa. Fifteen stations, 1,067 mm gauge, 600 volts DC overhead, and an end-to-end run of about thirty-four minutes at a top speed that rarely troubles 60 km/h. It is not a scenic branch line preserved for tourists; it is a working commuter railway that carries schoolchildren, shoppers and station staff every day, and it happens to pass through three of the most recognisable pieces of landscape in the Tokyo region.

How it came about. The first section, Fujisawa to Katase, opened in 1902, making the Enoden one of the earliest electric interurban railways in Japan. The extension east through the coastal villages reached Kamakura in 1910, and the alignment has barely changed since — which is precisely why the line now squeezes between buildings that were put up around it. Motorisation nearly finished it in the postwar decades, as it did most Japanese light railways, but the combination of chronic road congestion on the peninsula and a growing tourist load kept it alive. It now sits within the Odakyu group and runs at a frequency most rural lines can only envy.

Three distinct rides in one. The journey divides cleanly into thirds, and each third has its own character.

• Street running at Koshigoe. For roughly 350 metres the train leaves its reservation and runs down the middle of a public road among delivery vans, cyclists and shirasu shops, hemmed in by shopfronts on both sides.
• The sea section. Between Koshigoe and Shichirigahama the line breaks out onto the coast at Kamakurakōkōmae, running along a seawall with Sagami Bay, Enoshima and — in winter — Mount Fuji filling the right-hand windows.
• The house-scraping curves. East of Inamuragasaki the track climbs inland through Gokurakuji and Hase on tight radii, passing through a short tunnel and threading between garden walls close enough to read the laundry.

The trains themselves. Enoden rolling stock is a small, well-loved family. The 300 series, the last of the classic articulated pairs dating from the 1960s, still turns out and is the one enthusiasts wait for. The 1000 series of 1979 was the first train of a Japanese private railway to win the Blue Ribbon Award, and its successors — the 2000 and 500 series — kept the same stubby two-car module and the deep green and cream livery. Trains run in one-, two- or four-car formations, and the four-car limit is a hard physical constraint set by the platform lengths, which is the root of the line's capacity problem.

On screen and in print. The Enoden is one of the most filmed railways in Japan. Its best-known appearance is the level crossing at Kamakurakōkōmae in the 1993 Slam Dunk television opening, which remains a pilgrimage in its own right. Beyond that, the line runs through Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Tari Tari, Elfen Lied and a long list of live-action work, including Hirokazu Kore-eda's Our Little Sister (2015), which uses the Kamakura end as a quiet domestic backdrop rather than a spectacle. Almost every Japanese viewer recognises the green-and-cream front end on sight, which is a large part of why the line is treated as a character rather than as transport.

Crowding, and how to deal with it. Success has costs. Trains every twelve minutes with a four-car maximum cannot absorb a peak weekend, and at Kamakura and Enoshima the queues at the gates regularly stretch into the concourse. Kamakura City and the railway have run priority-boarding schemes for residents during Golden Week precisely because local people were unable to board their own line. If the schedule allows, travel on a weekday and before ten in the morning. If it does not, consider walking a section — the coastal stretch from Enoshima to Shichirigahama is pleasant on foot — or approaching from Ōfuna on the Shōnan Monorail, a suspended line that reaches the Enoshima area from the north and is almost never full.

Practicalities. Single fares are distance-based and modest; the Nori-ori-kun one-day pass covers unlimited travel on the whole line and pays for itself quickly, since the point of the Enoden is to get on and off. IC cards work at every station. Not all stations are staffed or step-free, and several have short platforms and narrow stairs, so mobility needs planning. Hydrangeas along the cutting near Gokurakuji peak in mid-June, which is the busiest fortnight of the year outside Golden Week.