The Itō Line (伊東線) is a main line run by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It runs from Atami Station in Atami city to Itō Station in Itō city, Shizuoka Prefecture.
History
The Itō Line was part of a line in the revised Railway Construction Act (改正鉄道敷設法) from Atami to Shimoda, via Matsuzaki, to Ōhito. It was first planned as a double-track line from Atami to Shimoda. But under the austerity policy of Hamaguchi Osachi (濱口雄幸), only the section from Atami to Itō was built, as a single-track line. The coast is steep, with mountains running down to the sea, and faults and soft ground made the opening difficult. Hot springs came out of the Usami tunnel during digging, and the tunnelling methods were fed back into the Shimizu and Tanna tunnels of the same period. The double-track plans of the national railway era were frozen, after only a few works. The old Usami tunnel was left unused. The local campaign for double track went on for years, and the association promoting it was dissolved in 2003.
On 30 March 1935 the Atami to Ajiro section (8.7 km) opened, with Kinomiya, Izu-taga and Ajiro stations. On 15 December 1938 the Ajiro to Itō section (8.2 km) opened, which completed the whole line, with Usami and Itō stations. The line was electrified over the whole length when it opened in 1938. Soon after it was complete, through trains from Tokyo began running on this tourist route.
In 1958 centralised traffic control (CTC) was tried between Kinomiya and Itō on 11 May, and it went into full use on 20 May. On 10 December 1961 the Izukyu Line (伊豆急行線) opened between Itō and Izukyū-Shimoda, and through running with it began. Until then Itō station had a section of the Tamachi depot, where trains were joined and split.
On 9 September 1968 the Tōkaidō Line between Atami and Kinomiya moved to a new line, so the old double track became the Itō Line's own track. On 1 February 1984 freight service was abolished across the whole line. On 25 February 1985 the old CTC equipment was replaced. On 1 April 1987 the national railway was split up and privatised, and JR East took over the line. JR Freight became the second-class operator, and freight came back only for moving vehicles to and from the Izukyu Line. On 1 October 1996 the line's management moved from the Tokyo head office to the new Yokohama branch.
In late November 2004 ATS-SN was replaced with ATS-P. On 19 August 2013 semi-automatic doors were used all year round at Atami and Itō for the first trains. On 8 March 2015 all stations except Atami and Itō became unstaffed, with a remote station operation system introduced. On 1 July 2026, As Japanese Wikipedia describes it, the line will move from the Yokohama branch to the Shōnan-Izu business headquarters, as part of the change from branch to business headquarters.
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Written by an AI from the line's history on Japanese Wikipedia, nothing else, and checked by a program for dates and numbers that are not in those facts. It can still be wrong. Adapted from Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0; this text is shared under the same licence.