【調査結果】上ヶ原から阪急高架下の市場に行ける「お買い物バス」のこと【宮っこ探偵】

Welcome to “Miyacco Detective,” a section where readers can look into Nishinomiya mysteries and feel like they’ve become detectives.Well, technically you really are detectives. This article will keep being updated whenever readers (Miyacco Detectives) send in new information.

Here at @nishi2, we receive lots of tips and emails every day asking us to “look into” this or that.

The @nishi2 team is excellent, of course, but there’s only so much we can do on our own, so we’ve decided to ask our readers for help～(^o^)／

1 A Request for Miyacco Detectives
2 Nishi2 Investigation
3 Information from Miyacco Detectives

A Request for Miyacco Detectives

This reader request comes from Wanko-san.

About the bus that ran from Uegahara to the market under the Hankyu elevated tracks

Key Points of the Request

Era: Late 1960s to early 1970s (about 50 years ago)
Details: Does anyone have memories or photos of the “shopping bus” that connected the Uegahara area with the market under the Hankyu elevated tracks?

About 50 years ago, there was a “shoppingbus” that connected the market under the Hankyu elevated tracks with the Uegahara area. Does anyone know about that time, or have any photos left? I think the place where I boarded that bus—or something like it—was around where the current FamilyMart Uegahara store is.

“© OpenStreetMap contributors”

Even today, under the Hankyu elevated tracks, there are places such as the Hankyu Shukugawa Sunlife Shopping Street and the New Futaba Sun Mall Shopping Street.

Nishi2 Investigation

At the @nishi2 office, we have several books featuring old photos of Nishinomiya.

I wondered if maybe there might be a photo of the “shopping bus” somewhere.

With just a tiny bit of hope, I flipped through these thick, ridiculously heavy books estimated 1.2 kg, but emotionally about 3 kg

*Source: Nishinomiya Then and Now, p.107

Operated between Hanshin Koroen Station and Koroen Beach

Maybe the shopping bus could be in here too～

*Source: Nishinomiya Then and Now, p.110

Mobile Library “Izumi”

A vehicle loaded with books that traveled around different areas, launched to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Showa era

Now my hopes were getting really high～

If the mobile library is in here, surely the “shopping bus” must be tooooo!! Or so I thought, and searched through the books thoroughly, but it wasn’t there😭😭😭

Information from Miyacco Detectives

Information from Koryo45-san

That would be the Futaba Ichiba bus. It was a bus with an orange pattern.
If my memory is right, it already existed in 1961. I was living in Nigawa Yuri-no-cho at the time.
I saw it in Yuri-no-cho too. Maybe it turned around near the Waterworks Bureau.
I live in Takarazuka now, but I’m a 67-year-old former Nishinomiya resident. I love the Nishinomiya where I was born and raised.
Rather than orange, I feel like it was more of a vermilion color. Back then, Hankyu buses were bonnet buses, and even the turn signals were semaphore-style. The Hankyu bus colors were similar to the colors of Fujiya French Caramel sold at candy shops (you probably don’t know it), and they were pretty.
Compared with that, the Futaba Market shopping bus somehow felt a bit uncool.

Information from Ichiba no Ko-san

About the shopping bus.
In the old days, the place where today’s Cocokara Fine is was a parking lot, and next to it was Hanshin Bank.
There was a shopping bus stop around the boundary between Hanshin Bank and the parking lot, and I think it was a red bus. Futaba Market’s shopping bus left from there. The bus itself was shaped like an ordinary bus. By the way, I’m 50 now, and this was when I was in elementary school.

Information from Toyohiro Tsuda-san

It definitely existed‼️ However, before the area under the elevated tracks became an arcade, there was an old-style bus and garage beside Futaba Market, which was located south of the Hankyu Line, and that was where it started‼️
Later, it moved from the old Futaba Market to under the elevated tracks under the name “Futaba New Town.” A new bus parking area was created under the tracks, even farther west than the market’s west entrance. As far as I know, I remember the early buses having an orange-based body, while later ones had a white-based body.
I have no idea when it existed until, but it’s true that the market itself gradually headed toward decline😢 I lived in Shimizu-cho from 1960 to 1982, so this area was basically my “backyard.”

*Source: Showa-era Nishinomiya City, p.62

A look at “Futaba Shopping Street” before it moved to Futaba New Town

Information from Anonymous-san

About the shopping bus for the shopping street under the Hankyu elevated tracks: I remember seeing it running in the late 1970s, when I was probably in kindergarten.
There was a simple bus stop by the roadside around where today’s Seven-Eleven Nishinomiya Hinoke-cho store is.
Neither I nor my parents ever rode it, and at some point it seems to have been discontinued.

So the bus was kind of vermilion-colored～ It must have stood out a lot😀

Information from Shan Oshima-san

At the time, under the Hankyu railway tracks west of Route 171, where the current Sunlife Shopping Street is, there was a market called “Futaba New Town” that you could walk through. For shoppers, a free “shopping bus” with a white body and red line ran from around where CS Burger is today. As for the route, I remember it being similar to the Hanshin Bus “Yamate West Loop” and “Yamate East Loop” routes. This “Futaba New Town” was where “Futaba Market,” which had been located around Yamate Kansen slightly south of Sunlife Shopping Street, relocated. It had locally familiar shops such as Tawaraya, Narumiya, Ito Fruit Shop, and Sawada Stationery.

The area east of Route 171 was called New Futaba Shopping Street, and some shops from that time are still open today.

So there was also a bus with a white body and red line running around😀

Information from Wanko-san

While looking into it myself, I found a document like this. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t include any photos of the bus…💦

Wanko-san, the person who made the request, sent us information about an incredibly amazing document😀
Thank you, Wanko-san.
Document: Development of Daily Goods Retail Commerce and Operation of “Shopping Buses” in the Hanshin Region During the High-Growth Period

This document is very much A DOCUMENT😅 with lots of printed text, so we’ll go through it in an @nishi2-style way😊

Apparently, within the city, three markets operated shopping buses: “Hankyu Market,” “Kotobuki Market,” and “Futaba Market”～

*Hankyu Market (Tsuto Kureha-cho) and Kotobuki Market (Naruo Satonaka)

It seems Futaba Market had its shops in the middle of fields.
So they started running the bus to attract new customers.

*The “shopping bus” began operating in 1955

Exactly! Even though housing was rapidly increasing around Uegahara, there weren’t places to shop, so it looks like they started operating the “shopping bus” mainly around the Uegahara district.

At first, they apparently converted an old truck and began shuttling customers for free under the name “Futaba Shopping Bus.” And it seems they even had a proper driver.

At some point, Futaba Market moved to its current location under the Hankyu elevated tracks and changed its name to Futaba New Town.

*In April 1969, Futaba Market closed its previous market

For 20 years after it began operating, it had no accidents, and the number of users kept increasing～

The 10th-generation bus seated 74 people～ Isn’t that huge?😆 That’s about the size of a sightseeing bus.

*The 10th-generation bus was purchased in July 1975

Futaba Market apparently ran the “shopping bus” five round trips per day each toward the east and west. There were supposedly 46 bus stops in total.

What’s really amazing is that Futaba Market covered everything: the cost of buying the bus, the driver’s salary, maintenance costs, all of it. Customers could use the shopping bus for free, right?

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