Okuooikojo-eki

　　It's kind of sudden, but do you know an American actor, Tommy Lee Jones? He is also popular in Japan. He has shown up in a series of CMs of canned coffees, in which he has been acting in a very serious way, but it's been somehow humorous. I think that lots of Japanese knew about him through these CMs. One of his CMs put a rural railroad station on the map. Its name is Okuooikojo-eki, and it was the next destination. Its general appearance is shown in the first picture. There were neither folk houses nor villages around the station. Why is the station here then?
　　I reached the platform via the left-side bridge coming down from the place where I took this picture. That was hard work in the muggy air, though the route to the bridge was well-maintained. I climbed down the stairs in the second picture and stood on the bridge in front of the tunnel in the third picture. As soon as I finished walking on the bridge, a train came in.
　　Actually, what looks like a river is a lake formed by a dam, i.e. a reservoir. A small village used to exist here, now beneath the water. You can see the ruin of the train tracks on the riverbank in the 6th and 7th pictures. In the 7th, a path leading underwater is also shown. There's only a rest place at the station now, but it's located on the hiking route and lots of people visit the station in the high season.

奥大井湖上駅
　
突然ですが、トミー・リー・ジョーンズを知ってますか？彼は日本でも人気があり、缶コーヒーのＣＭで彼を知った人も多いと思う。出演するＣＭは多分１０作以上になると思うが、そのひとつで有名になった駅がある。奥大井湖上駅といい、静岡市から１時間半ほどの場所にある。以前から一度は立ち寄りたい駅だった。写真を見てもらうとその雰囲気がわかるだろう。周囲に民家はない。なぜここに駅があるのか。橋の全景を撮影した場所から駅まで、向かって左側の橋を渡って駅に到達したのだが、遊歩道が整備されているとは言え暑い中、きついウォーキングとなった。
　
この池はダム湖である。その昔、ここには集落が有り、谷沿いに鉄道が通っていた。３枚目と６枚目にその痕跡が写っている。また６枚目には水面下へ続く道路の跡も見える。ここが水に沈むと決まってから写真の橋は出来た。この駅で下車しても遊歩道と小さなロッジがあるだけなのだがＣＭにより人気が出てこのあたりを散歩する人が絶えない。

Comments

[Peter]

You have the knack of writing really interesting travel stories.