Amarube Viaduct Sora no Eki

For almost a century, trains on the San'in Main Line crossed the Amarube valley on a steel trestle bridge about 310 meters long and 41.5 meters high, opened in 1912. On 28 December 1986, gusts of around 33 m/s blew seven cars of an out-of-service train off the bridge. They fell about 41 meters onto a seafood processing plant below, killing five workers there and the train's conductor, and injuring six more. The accident led to stricter wind rules, and in August 2010 the old bridge was replaced by the concrete one you see today, with clear windbreak walls that let trains keep running in stronger wind. Three of the old steel piers at the Amarube Station end were kept, and in 2013 the track on top opened as Sora no Eki, the station in the sky. You walk out along the old rails and sleepers to a dead end in mid-air, with the village roofs and the small harbor straight below. Since 2017 a glass elevator, the Amarube Crystal Tower, has run up from the valley floor in under a minute, so you no longer have to climb the steep slope. The deck is free. It is a short stop, perhaps 30 minutes, which matters when the next train may be two hours away.