This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Correction: This article previously dated Kashida Tunnel to 1874 and called it Japan’s earliest tunnel of its type. Neither claim checks out. The tunnel, in the Kashida district at the northern edge of Takatsuki City, Osaka Prefecture, opened in 1973 — roughly a century later than we’d said — running about 280 meters beneath the Shobi Pass. We’re correcting the record and replacing the invented “White Lady” and “Black Dog” stories with the account that actually circulates locally.
The Girl Who Wants a Ride to Takatsuki
The tunnel’s most consistently told story is a phantom-hitchhiker account, not a warning-ghost or a cursed animal. Drivers heading toward Takatsuki from the Kameoka direction report finding a young girl walking slowly through the tunnel late at night. Asked where she’s going, she says she wants to go to Takatsuki. Drivers who stop and let her in describe her vanishing from the back seat once they reach the built-up part of the city — she never arrives anywhere, she simply stops being there.
Separate from the hitchhiker story, drivers passing through report headlights and electrical systems failing inside the tunnel and returning to normal the moment they exit, along with occasional reports of small fireballs rising from car seats. Neither the White Lady’s warning nor the glowing-eyed Black Dog from the earlier version of this article turned up in what we could find repeated about this tunnel; we’ve dropped both rather than continue circulating unconfirmed additions.
A Pass With Pilgrimage History Before the Tunnel Existed
Before the tunnel opened in 1973, the Shobi Pass it now runs beneath was already part of a route connecting several sites of religious significance in the region — the kind of place foot travelers had been crossing long before any road was cut through it. That history predates the ghost stories by a wide margin and doesn’t explain them directly, but it places the tunnel inside a landscape that already carried weight before cars ever used it.
Can You Visit?
Kashida Tunnel remains an active road route through the Shobi Pass. Ordinary tunnel-driving caution applies, and the hitchhiker story, while widely repeated, has no documented connection to a specific accident or death at the site.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Kashida Tunnel really built in 1874?
No — that was an error in an earlier version of this article. The tunnel opened in 1973.
What’s the actual ghost story here?
A phantom hitchhiker: a young girl found walking in the tunnel late at night who asks for a ride to Takatsuki and disappears from the car before arriving.
Ghost-Hunting Gear & Further Reading
As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
Comments