Interrupted Service on the Minobu Line?

[gmat]

Anyone have any information on interrupted service between Minobu and Utsubuna Stations on the Minobu Line? On Wednesday, I went from Kofu Station intending to travel to Fuji Station. At Minobu Station, as I was waiting in the train, a staff member came on the train and asked if anyone was going to Fuji. I raised my hand and he said to go outside and get on the bus. Apparently the reason why most of the locals had disembarked was to transfer to the bus. There were a number of foreigners still on the train and we got out and headed for the bus. I had quickly made the connection at Kofu and had not paid attention to the train announcements so had completely missed that we had to transfer to a bus. I thought that there might be a problem with the line, but there hadn't been any heavy rain as the skies were clear. After we passed the stop for Kai-Oshima Station, I noticed that a section of the hillside rail roadbed was missing and just after that, on the other side of a rail tunnel, the rail ties were being replaced and new ballast piled up. Did this happen during the 3-11 Earthquake? I had been worried that we might be bused to Fuji which might take several hours, but we got back on at Utsubuna and arrived at Fuji only a few minutes late. The train was rather crowded at Kofu and the seats were still almost all filled when we got to Minobu. There were some nice small unmanned stations on the way, but I took very few pics on the way.

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[The_Ghan]

Since Kofu is my town gmat, it would be great to see some photos.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Kitayama]

Minobu line was hit by typhoon #15 "Roke" at Sep 15, 2011.

[bikkuri bahn]

Apparently there is repair work being done on the line due to damage from the aforementioned typhoon.  Services are expected to return to normal by the end of March.

[ISO8]

Hi all,

 

JR central released the restart of Minobu line on 17.Mar

 

http://www.at-s.com/news/detail/100099988.html

 

Best Regards,

 

ISO8