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Japanese railway company

, trading as , is a Japanese private railway company that provides commuter and interurban service to the northern Kansai region and is one of the flagship properties of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., in turn part of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group (which includes H2O Retailing Corporation and Toho Co., the creator of Godzilla). The railway's main terminal is at Umeda Station in Osaka. The signature color of Hankyu cars is maroon. The Hankyu network serves 1,950,000 people every weekday and offers several types of express service with no extra charge. The head offices of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc. and Hankyu Corporation are at 1 16 1, Shibata, Kita ku, Osaka; both companies' registered headquarters are at 1 1, Sakaemachi, Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture. The Takarazuka Revue, an all female musical theatre performance company, is well known as a division of the Hankyu railway company; all of its members are employed by Hankyu.

The name Hankyu is an abbreviation of (京阪神急行). (京阪神) refers to the area served by Hankyu trains, comprising the cities of Kyoto (京都), Osaka (大阪) and Kobe (神戸), along with the suburbs that connect them to each other. (急行) means "express train(s)".

In 1907, the Minoo Arima Electric Tramway Company (箕面有馬電気軌道株式会社), a forerunner of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc., was established by Ichizō Kobayashi (precisely, he was one of the "promoters" of the tramway). On 10 March 1910, Minoo Arima Tramway opened the rail lines from Umeda to Takarazuka (the Takarazuka Main Line) and from Ishibashi to Minoo (the Minoo Line). The tramway was popular due to Kobayashi's pioneering act to develop housing around stations along the line (a first in Japan), a forerunner to transit oriented developments.

On February 4, 1918, Minoo Arima Tramway was renamed
On July 16, 1920, the Kobe Main Line from Jūsō to Kobe (later, renamed Kamitsutsui) and the Itami Line from Tsukaguchi to Itami were opened. On April 1, 1936, the Kobe Main Line was extended from Nishi Nada (present day Ōji kōen) to the new terminal in Kobe (present day Kobe Sannomiya Station), and the Kobe Main Line from Nishi Nada to Kamitsutsui was named the Kamitsutsui Line, which was abandoned on May 20, 1940. In 1936, Hankyu established a professional baseball team and in 1937 the Nishinomiya Stadium as the team's home field was completed near Nishinomiya Kitaguchi Station. The Hankyu Braves (named in 1947) played until the 1988 season and became the predecessors of the present day Orix Buffaloes.

On October 1, 1943, under the order of the government, Hanshin Kyūkō and Keihan Electric Railway were merged, and renamed The merged lines included the Keihan Main Line, the Uji Line, the Shinkeihan Line (present day Kyoto Main Line), the Senriyama Line (present day Senri Line), the Jūsō Line (part of Kyoto Main Line), the Arashiyama Line, the Keishin Line and the Ishiyama Sakamoto Line. The Katano Line was also added in 1945. On December 1, 1949, the Keihan Main Line, the Katano Line, the Uji Line, the Keishin Line, and the Ishiyama Sakamoto Line were split off to become part of the newly established Keihan Electric Railway Co., Ltd. Although this revived the former Keihan Electric Railway, Keihan was now smaller than before the 1943 merger, because the Shinkeihan Line and its branches were not given up by Keihanshin. The present structure of the Hankyu network with the three main lines was fixed by this transaction. The abbreviation of Keihanshin Kyūkō Railway was changed from "Keihanshin" to "Hankyū".

On April 7, 1968, the Kobe Main Line started through service to the Kobe Rapid Transit Railway Tozai Line and the Sanyo Electric Railway Main Line. On December 6, 1969, the Kyoto Main Line and the Senri Line started through service to the Osaka Municipal Subway Sakaisuji Line. In 1970, the Senri Line was one of access routes to the Expo '70 held in Senri area. On April 1, 1973, Keihanshin Kyūkō Railway Company assumed its current name. On April 1, 2005, former Hankyu Corporation became a holding company and was renamed Hankyu Holdings, Inc. (阪急ホールディングス株式会社). The railway business was ceded to a subsidiary, now named Hankyu Corporation (before the restructuring, the new company which reused a dormant company founded on December 7, 1989, was called "Act Systems" (株式会社アクトシステムズ) until March 28, 2004, then "Hankyū Dentetsu Bunkatsu Junbi K. K." (阪急電鉄分割準備株式会社) from the next day). On October 1, 2006, Hankyu Holdings became the wholly owning parent company of Hanshin Electric Railway Co., Ltd. and the holdings were renamed Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc Hankyu's stock purchase of Hanshin shares was completed on June 20, 2006.