The Hakkaku Tunnel is a relic of the Yuen Railway, which once ran from present-day Minami Kumamoto Station to the town of Misato, a distance of 28.6km.
The railway was initially called the Mifune Railway. However, with plans for the railroad to connect Kumamoto to Nobeoka finalized, the railway was renamed Yuen Railway by combining the first kanji characters of each of the two stops.
The Hakkaku Tunnel is a structure originally built to protect the railroad from falling rocks. To this day, over 50 years after the decommissioning of the railway in 1964, it remains an industrial artifact. Why was it octagonal? Why are there sections of open air between each arch? Many mysteries still surround its shape and construction.
Take a walk through this uniquely shaped tunnel, and you’ll experience a mysterious atmosphere—one in which you’ll feel like you were transported through time.