Kobe Electric Railway will select a headmark design for the Ao Line through a public vote to commemorate the line’s 75th anniversary. Voting will run from 4 October to 22 December 2026, with a total of 8 designs from 4 categories scheduled to be displayed on railway cars.
Kobe Electric Railway is holding the “Kobe Electric Railway Ao Line Headmark Design Contest” and a public vote to promote awareness of and revitalize the Ao Line, which opened in its entirety in 1952 and will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2027. Voting will run from 4 October to 22 December 2026. The 8 designs to be displayed on railway cars as headmarks will be eligible for voting.
The contest has 4 categories (elementary school, junior high school, high school, and open category), with entries solicited in each category. The designs receiving the most votes will be adopted as headmarks. The number of designs selected in each category is 8 for elementary school, 6 for junior high school, 5 for high school, and 12 for the open category. The selected designs will be announced at a later date.
Voting will be conducted through a dedicated online voting form and will also be available at event booths at the Shintetsu Train Festival 2026 and the Miki Hardware Festival. The URL for the voting form will be provided, and a list of the submitted designs will be published separately.
If 8 designs are adopted as headmarks for railway cars as a result of the vote, the selected entrants will be contacted around March 2027. Original novelty items are scheduled to be awarded by lottery to 10 entrants who were not selected. Entries other than the selected designs will also be published.
The release was issued by Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, and the official release and related PDFs are available on the Kobe Electric Railway website.