Hakata Minami Line

The Hakata Minami Line (博多南線) is an 8.5km railway line in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, connecting Hakata Station in Fukuoka to Hakata-Minami Station in Kasuga. It is operated by the West Japan Railway Company.

The line was originally built in the 1970s to transport Sanyo Shinkansen trains from the Hakata terminal to a large train depot in Kasuga. At that time, Kasuga was a rural region and did not merit a train station of its own. By the late 1980s, however, the area had become a sprawling suburb of Fukuoka. JR decided to build a station adjacent to the depot, and inaugurated service in 1990 with retired 0 Series Shinkansen trains.

Although the line uses Shinkansen equipment, it is not considered a part of the Shinkansen network. This makes it one of only two standard gauge lines in the JR network that is not part of the Shinkansen (the other is the Kaikyo Line where it passes through the Seikan Tunnel).

The trip from Hakata to Hakata-Minami takes ten minutes and costs 290 yen.