Daibutsu Railway

What?
The Daibutsu Railway (大佛鐡道) was a train line connecting Nara (奈良) with Kamo (加茂), as part of a bigger scheme to connect Osaka and Nagoya. Opened in 1898, it only served 9 years before closing down in 1907. Not surprisingly, as apparently passengers had to push sometimes to help the train up a moderate hill. There are no more rails to be found, but here and there some stone structures or memorabilia remain and are connected through a walking course of about 3 hours.
Where?
Kamo Station in Kyoto Prefecture 京都県 can be easily reached from Osaka in one straight line. From there the walking course is very well signalized and leads over the prefectural border into Nara 奈良県. From there connections back to Osaka or Kyoto are easy to catch.
URL
Kizugawa City Japanese Blog Post

Forced holidays and a lifted state of emergency might not have the happiest cause, but they shouldn’t be a bad thing. Complete absence of fellow tourists make for smooth traveling. Not that I assume that the Daibutsu Railway walk usually attracts throngs of visitors - it’s too minor for that.

But the first half of the walk was quite nice. It’s possible to choose between a rural landscape course and a historic course. I chose the latter as just a few days ago I had ample opportunity to see rural scenery at Yamanobe-no-Michi.

Truth to be told, apart from one small temple, the historic course probably didn’t differ much from the rural course. Not that that bothers me. Walking through small private gardens and an atmospheric bamboo forest, the occasional railway remnants seemed more interesting than they probably are.

One of the locomotives that used to run the line.

A small bamboo forest hides the few remaining railway structures.

One of the small tunnels made for agricultural purposes.

On the Kyoto Prefecture side, the walk leads you through pretty places.

The second half though is a drab walk on paved roads, more often than not quite busy with traffic, with the occasional abutment or tunnel or other relic of the past. When arriving at the last point of interest in Nara, the deception was complete as the commemorative park where once the Daibutsu Station stood was utterly small and insignificant.

If you live nearby, or if you have already seen the most of Nara’s other offerings, or if you are a big train addict, there’s absolutely no harm in taking this walk. I would start in Kamo, go just past the golf course through two old tunnels and then loop back to the starting point.