--- title: "Abt no Michi and Meganebashi: walking the old Usui Pass railway" description: "Abt no Michi is a 6.3-kilometer path on a closed railway over the Usui Pass. It passes a 1911 substation, ten brick tunnels and the Meganebashi bridge of 1892." url: https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/abt-no-michi language: en published: 2026-11-11 category: "Oginoya › Yokokawa and the Usui Pass" tags: ["Yokokawa", "RailwayHistory", "Gunma"] author: "Oginoya Editorial Team" publisher: "Oginoya Co., Ltd." translations: zh-TW: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-tw/articles/abt-no-michi ko: https://kama-meshi.com/ko/articles/abt-no-michi zh-CN: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-cn/articles/abt-no-michi zh-HK: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-hk/articles/abt-no-michi th: https://kama-meshi.com/th/articles/abt-no-michi de: https://kama-meshi.com/de/articles/abt-no-michi fr: https://kama-meshi.com/fr/articles/abt-no-michi es: https://kama-meshi.com/es/articles/abt-no-michi --- # Abt no Michi and Meganebashi: walking the old Usui Pass railway ![The mouth of a brick tunnel opening onto a gravel path with railings that crosses a bridge among green trees, with walkers in the distance](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/abt-no-michi-tunnel5-bridge-2012.DZFja8y4_Z28wEqg.webp) *Abt no Michi* (the Abt Road) is a walking path about 6.3 kilometers long, laid on the roadbed of a closed railway from Yokokawa Station in Gunma Prefecture up to the former Kumanotaira Station on the Usui Pass. It passes a brick substation built in 1911, runs through ten brick tunnels and crosses Meganebashi, a four-arch brick bridge finished in 1892 that stands 31 meters above the river. ## A path on a railway roadbed The railway between Yokokawa and [Karuizawa](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/karuizawa-history), about 11.2 kilometers long, opened in 1893. Its trains climbed by the Abt system, developed by the Swiss engineer Carl Roman Abt: a toothed third rail lay between the two running rails, and cogwheels fitted to the axles of the locomotive meshed with it. [The story of the line is told here](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/yokokawa-usui). The rack line was used for about 70 years, until a new line replaced it in 1963, and the path is named after it. Between Maruyama and Kumanotaira the new line did not follow the old one, and most of what the rack line had built there was left standing. The railway over the pass closed in 1997, when [the Shinkansen to Nagano](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/hokuriku-shinkansen) opened. The path was built under a walking-trail program of the Ministry of Construction. It was completed from Yokokawa to Meganebashi in 2001 and extended to Kumanotaira in 2012. The path starts just north of the Usui Pass Railway Heritage Park, which opened in 1999 on the site of the locomotive depot at Yokokawa. On the closed tracks, the park's sightseeing trolley train uses the Karuizawa-bound track, and the path was laid on the Tokyo-bound track. Yokokawa Station is where [Oginoya](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/oginoya-history) began selling food on October 15, 1885, and where it put [Tōge no Kamameshi](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/what-is-kamameshi) on sale in February 1958. ## The Maruyama Substation About 2 kilometers from the start stand the two brick buildings of the former Maruyama Substation. In 1912 the line became the first trunk railway in Japan to be electrified, to rid its tunnels of smoke and to carry more. A thermal power station was built at Yokokawa for the railway alone. The Maruyama Substation, built in 1911 together with a second substation at Yagasaki in Karuizawa, converted that power to the voltage the railway used and stored some of it in batteries for emergencies. The heaviest train that could be hauled over the pass weighed 126 tons in 1911, at the end of steam working, and 360 tons in 1958, near the end of the electric rack line. Both substations were retired with the Abt system in 1963. The Yagasaki Substation was pulled down. The Maruyama Substation was emptied of its equipment and left standing, and repair work in 2001 and 2002 returned its exterior and roof to the way they looked when it was built. ![A long red-brick building with arched windows](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/maruyama-substation-2021.C6tt_E_X_u5cux.webp "The former Maruyama Substation, 2021.") ## Meganebashi, the Usui Third Bridge Before it reaches Meganebashi the path goes through five tunnels, and Usui Lake can be seen from it on the way. The lake was formed in 1958, when the Sakamoto Dam was completed at the point where the Usui and Nakao rivers meet. The Fifth Tunnel opens directly onto the bridge. ![The inside of a brick-lined tunnel lit orange by lamps along the wall, with a gravel floor](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/abt-no-michi-tunnel5-interior-2012.CAuB5aYD_oQQjq.webp "Inside the Fifth Tunnel on Abt no Michi, 2012.") Meganebashi, "spectacles bridge", is the popular name of the Usui Third Bridge, which crosses the Usui River. Work on it began in April 1892 and was finished in December of that year, the year before the line opened. The bridge has four brick arches, is 91.1 meters long and stands 31.39 meters high. It was the largest of the 18 bridges on the line, and it is among the largest four-arch brick bridges in Japan. It was designed by a British engineer who was closely involved in planning the line, and an estimated two million bricks went into it. The bridges of the line were reinforced in 1896: each arch of the Third Bridge had a span of 18.29 meters before the work and has a span of 16.5 meters now. ![The tall red-brick arches of a railway bridge seen from below, among fresh green trees](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/usui-third-bridge-2014.CPMSW7oO_1BmvCm.webp "The Usui Third Bridge, Meganebashi, 2014.") The path runs across the top of the bridge. A flight of 123 steps leads up to it from the national road below, and the remains of the 1963 line can be seen to the north from the top. ## The Sixth Tunnel and Kumanotaira Beyond the bridge is the Sixth Tunnel, at 546.17 meters the longest of the 26 tunnels on the line. Its entrance on the Yokokawa side is brick, its exit on the Karuizawa side is cut stone, and the whole tunnel curves in an S. The path ends at Kumanotaira, which opened in 1893 as a place where trains going up and trains coming down could pass each other, and became a station in 1906. The Kumanotaira Substation was built there in 1937, when growing traffic on the electrified line was causing the voltage to drop. It is a plain two-story building of reinforced concrete. In June 1950 a landslide struck the station grounds, swept away staff housing and killed 50 people, and a statue of a mother and child stands at the site in their memory. Kumanotaira was made a signal station in 1966, when the line between Yokokawa and Karuizawa was double-tracked, and it went out of use when the line closed in 1997. The view from the station is said to have inspired the words of the school song "Momiji" (autumn leaves). ![Rusted railway tracks and overhead line poles leading to a row of tunnel mouths in a wooded hillside](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/kumanotaira-station-site-2014.pkoJG2ME_127BWH.webp "The site of Kumanotaira Station, 2014.") ## What is protected The bridges, tunnels and substations of the rack line are an Important Cultural Property of Japan, the Former Usui Pass Railway Facilities, which include seven brick bridges, eleven tunnels and three substation buildings. Five bridges, the Second through the Sixth, were designated in 1993, and the First through the Tenth tunnels and the two buildings of the Maruyama Substation in 1994. The additions of 2018 included the Seventh and Thirteenth bridges, the Seventeenth Tunnel and the Kumanotaira Substation. [What Japan has kept of its railways, and who protects it](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/railway-heritage-japan), is the subject of a separate article. In 2018, walking events also began on the closed 1963 line. ## References - [Annaka City, "Cultural properties in the city: Former Usui Pass Railway Facilities"](https://www.city.annaka.lg.jp/page/2134.html) - [Annaka City, "Abt no Michi walking path"](https://www.city.annaka.lg.jp/page/2000.html) - [Annaka City, "Meganebashi"](https://www.city.annaka.lg.jp/kanko_spot/megane.html) - [Annaka City, "Basic concept for a roadside station (draft)," February 2024 (PDF)](https://www.city.annaka.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/11206.pdf) - [Annaka City, "Usui Lake"](https://www.city.annaka.lg.jp/page/21663.html) - [Gunma Prefecture, "Usui Pass Railway Facilities" (PDF)](http://worldheritage.pref.gunma.jp/pdf/ks003/usui-t.pdf) - [Agency for Cultural Affairs, Cultural Heritage Online, "Former Usui Pass Railway Facilities: Third Bridge"](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/191843) - [Agency for Cultural Affairs, Cultural Heritage Online, "Former Maruyama Substation machine room"](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/124894) - [Oginoya, chronology](https://www.oginoya.co.jp/tougenokamameshi/history/) Image credits (resized for display): - [Toshinori baba / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abt_road_Usui_Bridge_No03.JPG), [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), 2012 - [くろふね / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E6%97%A7%E4%B8%B8%E5%B1%B1%E5%A4%89%E9%9B%BB%E6%89%8020211106-IMG_7936.jpg), [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), 2021 - [Toshinori baba / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abt_road_tunnel.JPG), [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), 2012 - [nimame / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Usui_Bridge_No._3_2014-05-01_01.jpg), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), 2014 - [nimame / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remains_of_Kumanotaira_Station.jpg), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), 2014