A wooden roundhouse still exists at a depot on a regional railway in the western part of Shizuoka prefecture, about 250 km southwest of Tokyo. This is a third sector railway, Tenryu-Hamanako Railway, named after the Tenryu river and Hamana Lake in the region, which took over the former national railway’s (JNR) Futamata line. Futamata is a small town (currently part of Tenryu city) located in the middle of the line, about 20 km northeast of Hamamatsu, the second largest city in the prefecture. Tenryu-Futamata station is the most strategic point of the line, where its headquarters and depot are placed. The Tenryu river flows down just west of the town, and rugged mountainous areas come closely down to the town from the north.

The Futamata line was strategically constructed during the last war as a detour route of the Tokaido main line, in case any of bridges over the Tenryu river and Hamana Lake were destroyed, and was inaugurated in 1940. It diverges from Kakegawa on the Tokaido Main line and converges at Shinjohara, running a 67.7 km route along the rim of the Enshu (the name of the region) Plain where rice paddies stretch, along with numbers of tea fields and orange plantations lying on the hillsides. The line was supposed to be abandoned as a result of the JNR privatization in 1987, but was taken over by the new railway company established in cooperation with local towns and villages along the line, who eagerly wanted continuation of the rail service.

The new railway introduced newly built rail buses for its fleet upon origination of business, but inherited facilities from the JNR as they were, with a roundhouse associated with a turntable in the line’s engine depot at Tenryu-Futamata. Not only the roundhouse but also surrounding wooden buildings in use for the line’s workshop office and crew office well retain the ambiance of the old JNR facility. The images contained here, taken in August 1998 by the author, depict the overall circumstances of the depot and station.