Kobe, the Terminal Station of the Tokaido Main Line Where You Can Feel the Changes of a Port Town [Tokaido Main Line Stopover Trip #23]

The long journey on the Tokaido Main Line has finally reached its end.
Last time, I talked about Osaka Station.

It takes about 30 minutes by Special Rapid Service from Osaka Station to Kobe Station, the terminus of the Tokaido Main Line.
Nowadays, there are almost no trains that terminate at Kobe Station; if you take the Special Rapid, it will go all the way to Himeji.
It takes 30 minutes from Kobe to Himeji by Special Rapid.
If you travel all the way from Maibara to Himeji, you will have traversed two prefectures and two urban prefectures in the Kansai region in two and a half hours. Even though the Special Rapid is called a 'local train,' it travels at speeds comparable to a limited express.

The current downtown area of Kobe is located around Sannomiya Station and Motomachi Station.
The area south of Sannomiya Station is where the former foreign settlement was located, and Chinatown is also in the Motomachi area.
Meriken Park along the waterfront is also south of Motomachi Station.

However, Kobe Station is two stops west of Sannomiya.
It is a station located slightly to the west of the Kobe city center.
It is also a little further west from the aforementioned Meriken Park.

Looking at the station building of Kobe Station, it has a luxurious design. There is even a VIP room inside, and it can be said that it was a building that symbolized the port town of Kobe in the past.

Even though it is far from the current city center, was Kobe Station the central station?

This is because the center of the port of Kobe was originally not around Sannomiya, but south of Kobe Station.

The area around the Kobe Central Wholesale Market and Aeon Mall Kobe Minami is the district that was the original port town.

Along the Seto Inland Sea in Hyogo, the land generally extends in an east-west direction. From around Kobe Station to Wada Misaki, the land protrudes to the south.

Since the area south of Kobe Station was an inlet, the port was built on the side of this protruding land.

It is said that Taira no Kiyomori laid the foundation for this 'Kobe'.

Taira no Kiyomori developed 'Owada no Tomari,' which became a base for trade between Japan and the Song dynasty. Since then, it has been regarded as an important port in the Seto Inland Sea.

Later called Hyogo-tsu, the location of this Aeon Mall was where a castle was built to control Hyogo-tsu. During the Edo period, a magistrate's office was also located here.

Even in the demands for opening the port at the end of the Edo period, strictly speaking, they were told to open 'Hyogo.' However, instead of the area of Hyogo-tsu where residents already lived, they placed the 'foreign settlement' in the area of present-day Sannomiya and Motomachi, where there was almost nothing at the time.

This is the same story as when they were told to open the port of 'Kanagawa,' but placed the foreign settlement in what is now Kannai in Yokohama.

The railway came to Kobe in 1874. It was only natural that a railway station, which would become a hub for logistics, was placed at the edge of that port town of Hyogo.

However, in 1899, the Kobe settlement was returned to Japan.
This triggered the shift of the center of the port town of Kobe to this former settlement area, and it transformed into a business district.

A wharf was also built in front of this foreign settlement. That was around the area of today's Meriken Park. The center of the port shifted from the location of Hyogo-tsu to the Sannomiya and Motomachi side.

When Kobe Station was built, it was undoubtedly a station that symbolized the port town of Kobe.
In order to transport goods to the major city of Osaka, the railway between Osaka and Kobe was the very first to open in the Kansai region.

The route that eventually became the Tokaido Main Line was created by connecting several sections one after another.

The entire line from Shimbashi in Tokyo to Kobe opened in 1889.
It took 18 years from the start of the railway to connect Tokyo and Kobe by rail.

From here to the west, the private Sanyo Railway laid its own separate tracks.
In the same year, the Sanyo Railway began service into Kobe Station.

This became the junction between the Tokaido Main Line and the Sanyo Main Line later on.

I strongly felt the passion of our predecessors who developed the railway that started from Tokyo and Yokohama in the east and reached Kobe, creating a flow of people and goods.

I enjoy taking trips to leisurely enjoy the scenery of various places, but 150 years later, I feel that the reason we are able to travel so quickly is precisely because of that first step taken between Shimbashi and Yokohama.

The long 600-kilometer rail journey from Tokyo ends here for now.

[Tokaido Main Line Stopover Trip: Complete]

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