Sapporo — Streetcar on Minami 1-jo Street

The Sapporo Streetcar traces back to a horse-drawn line built in 1909 to haul stone, electrified in 1918 to coincide with a major exposition; the City of Sapporo has run the line since 1927. The network peaked at about 25 km in the 1960s before subway expansion closed much of it, and a new link opened in December 2015 between Nishi-4-chome and Susukino, turning the remaining route into a continuous loop of about 8.9 km (roughly an hour end to end). This camera looks down Minami 1-jo Street, part of the Ichijo Line -- one of the three lines that opened on the very first day of service in 1918 and still runs on its original alignment. The Sansei Building visible in the background -- built in 1924 as the Yabu Shoji Company building -- is the oldest surviving reinforced-concrete office building in Sapporo and a designated Sapporo Scenic Heritage property, standing here since six years after the first cars ran.