Hello everyone, kapinozuka here.
Take a look at these photos to begin with.
Taken at a certain station on the Toubu Isesaki Line
Taken at a certain station on the Toubu Isesaki Line
The date/time taken and the direction is different, but the place the pic was taken is basically the same. Sorry for the lighting not being very good...
On this Tobu-line, the train of Tokyo Metro Hibiya line runs in one direction, while the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon line runs in the other.
But... Its supposed to be a subway, yet its clearly above ground,
Not to mention the rail itself is that of another company, and has multiple metro line trains running on it... kinda odd when you stop to think about it.
Although its just accepted as the norm here.
Thanks to the involvement of private rails and JR,
the subway of Tokyo covers quite a large area now.
Speaking of Tokyo subways, Tokyo Metro is the main company holding our subways, was once known as Corporate Subway. Lets take a look back at the history of this subway of Tokyo.
★The world's first subway was in London
Let us look at the world's first subway before we begin.
The world's first subway was in London, UK.
This was in January 1863, and apparently had steam trains taking passengers back then. You would never expect a subway to be all smoky these days though. And Japan was in the Edo era back then, just FYI.
The rail railway of Japan had been made using the example of UK railways,
so the system itself has many similarities with the British ones.
And looks like the subway have also used their example, too.
*btw the subway is known as 'underground' or 'tube' in the UK, 'subway' in the US, and 'metro' in the non-english speaking countries like France.
★The initial Japanese subways were started up by the public
The first of Japan's subways was created in the year 1927, the Tokyo underground railways between Asakusa and Ueno.
Founded by Noritsugu Hayakawa, a member of public, who had gone though construction design, submitting for permission and saw to its completion.
The extension to Shimbashi from Ueno had been added on at a later stage.
This is area is what is now a part of the Ginza line of Tokyo Metro.
★The only subway of the Orient
Back then, there were posters boasting the subway as the only one in the oriental region. The first subway of Japan happened to be the first of the orient, and also the first of Asia. I think that's pretty interesting.
★Aiming to commute with room to spare
Hayakawa had seen the subways of London when he visited the Europe region,
and saw it as something of a necessity in Tokyo too.
A subway in Glasgow had passenger limit of the number of seats + α,
and seems that Hayakawa felt that this as the ideal commuting form.
*he had noticed that the commuters of Tokyo back then were relying on the trams, and was over-crowded with so many commuters, and saw the limits to the transport method above ground.
★Placing a long platform
To create the ideal commuting environment, he placed a very roomy 6 carriage length platform to begin with, even though the train initially running were single carriage trains.
This was to allow space for passengers to wait, with more carriages added.
*Although the current Ginza line uses a 6-car formation, the platform is very crowded, so we can see that the number of subway users gone way beyond the initial estimated number of users.
★Prepareing High Quality Trains
Hayakawa had put passenger safety as top priority, and prepared a high quality train.
In an era where trains were usually wooden, he had prepared a fully metallic train, with the interiors made of materials that were less likely to burn.
He also introduced the ATS (automatic train stop), a system that will automatically stop the train if certain situations arise, to prevent accidents.
*This is normal these days, but this being done in the late 1920s, we can see that they were using state of the arts technology and service of that era.
The lighting for the interior used light, which was gentle on the eye, creating a relaxed atmosphere. This must have been such a great environment for passengers to commute in, I would imagine.
*an entire train (single car) from back then is displayed at the railway museum, if you are interested.
★Establishing an Automated ticketing system
The train fare back then were 10sen, which is about 200yen value I think, slightly expensive if you compare it to the 160yen initial rate of Tokyo Metro. The gate had cross-shaped bar which turns just enough for one person
to get trough when you place a 10sen coin. This was pretty much high tech back then.
★Train Transfer Plan
There were concepts of running the train to the outskirts. This was to allow for transfer onto the railway above ground, and the railway company which was planned to transfer to was the Keihin Electric Railway, a private
rail company currently known as
Keikyu Main Line.
With this relationship, there were trains quite similar to the metro trains running on the Keikyu line.
However, it seems that due to many circumstances, this transfer didn't happen. If we imagined what could have happened in the history, there may have been a route from Asakusa, to Ueno, to Shimbashi, and Shinagawa, and we
might have seen the Keikyu start from Asakusa or Ueno.
*Currently the Toei Asakusa line runs onto Keikyu, so it doesn't go to Ueno, but there is a similar route.
So anyway, I made a train map for it!
I made it with the City of Tokyo in the summer of 1939 in mind.
There may be slight errors, but this would be what the rail map would have been like, I would imagine.
Keihin subway never became a reality, so I left that as a dashed line.
The Manseibashi kinda got dismantled in the year 1931, so I put that in a lighter shade.
The basis of the color sorting is just random, but the Tokyo subway was yellow or vermilion trains, so I put orange to match the current Ginza line.
Keihin underground railway would've been similar to the Keikyu, so I put that in red.
And a mysterious subway that runs from Shibuya to Shinbash, aka Tokyo rapid transit railway... it will take a while to explain, so I'll leave that for another time.
So that's how the Japanese subways were started.
Currently, there are 9 Tokyo Metro lines and 4 Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bureau of Transportation, for a total of 13 lines.
Its in the top 3 subways of the world, along with London and New York. (although apparently we will be 4th soon, overtaken by Shanghai)
Anyway, we have many underground rail models.
Some items we recently got are the following:
Tokyo Metro Series 10000 (Basic 4-Car Set) (w/Motor)
Tokyo Metro Series 7000 Late Type w/Cooler (Basic 6-Car Set)
And some items we are currently taking preorders for:
Eidan Series 03 Hibiya Line (8-Car Set)
Tokyo Metro Hanzomon Line & Hibiya Line Double Set
Tokyo Metro Namboku Line & Chiyoda Line Double Set
Other than the ones above, there are many others if you search using key words such as [Eidan], [Metro], [Toei], [Subway] etc., so let's give that a try!
By Kapinozuka