Shinjuku Station

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South side of Shinjuku Station at night

Shinjuku Station (新宿駅, -eki^?) is a train station located in Shinjuku and Shibuya wards in Tokyo, Japan. The precise location of the station is 35.690302° N 139.700539° E.

Serving as the main connecting hub for rail traffic between central Tokyo and its western suburbs on JR, commuter rail and metro lines, the station is used by an average of 3.47 million people per day in 2004^{[citation needed]}, making it the busiest train station in the world in terms of number of passengers. Including an underground arcade, there are well over 200 exits.

In terms of area, Shinjuku is the second-largest station in the world after Nagoya Station.

[edit] Lines

Shinjuku is served by the following railway systems:

• JR-East:
  • Yamanote Line
  • Chūō Main Line
  • Chūō-Sōbu Line
  • Shōnan-Shinjuku Line
  • Saikyō Line

• Odakyu Electric Railway:
  • Odakyu Odawara Line

• Keio Electric Railway:
  • Keio Line
  • Keio New Line

• Tokyo Metro:
  • Marunouchi Line

• Toei Subway:
  • Toei Shinjuku Line
  • Toei Ōedo Line

[edit] Station facilities

[edit] JR

A northbound Saikyo Line train bound for Kawagoe takes on passengers at JR Shinjuku Station.

The station is centered around facilities servicing the East Japan Railway Company (JR-East) lines. These consist of 14 ground level platforms on a north-south axis, connected by two overhead and two underground concourses. Most JR services here are urban and suburban mass transit lines, although JR's intercity express services to Kofu and Matsumoto on the Chūō Main Line, Narita Express to Narita Airport, and joint operations with Tobu Railway to Nikkō and Kinugawa Onsen also use this station. The JR section alone handles an average of 1.5 million passengers a day.

[edit] Odakyu

The terminus for the private Odakyu Odawara Line is parallel to the JR platforms on the west side, and handles an average of 495,000 passengers daily. This is a major commuter route stretching southwest through the suburbs and out towards the coastal city of Odawara and the mountains of Hakone. The 10 platforms are built on two levels beneath the Odakyu department store; 3 express service tracks (6 platforms) on the ground level and 2 tracks (4 platforms) on the level below. Each track has platforms on both sides in order to completely separate boarding and alighting passengers.

[edit] Keio

Toei Ōedo Line platforms

Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line platform

The Keio Line's concourse is located to the west of the Odakyu line concourse, two floors below ground level under Keio department store. It now consists of 3 platforms stretching north to south. Approximately 710,000 passengers use this section daily, which makes it the busiest amongst the privately owned (i.e. non-JR) railways of Japan. This suburban commuter line links Shinjuku to Hachioji city to the west.

[edit] Toei Subway

The shared facilities for the Toei Shinjuku subway line and the Keio New Line consist of 2 platforms stretching east-west 5 floors beneath Kōshū Kaidō avenue to the southwest of the JR section. The concourse is managed by Keio Electric Railways but is in a separate location to the main Keio platforms. Further south (and deeper underground) are the 2 north-to-south Toei Oedo subway line platforms.

[edit] Tokyo Metro

Tokyo Metro's two Marunouchi Line underground platforms stretch east-west to the north of the JR and Odakyu facilities, directly below the Metro Promenade underground mall.

[edit] Commercial facilities

Many department stores and shopping malls are built directly into the station. These include

• Lumine Est - above JR's east exit
• Odakyu department store - above the Odakyu line concourse
• Odakyu Mylord - above the southern end of Odakyu line concourse
• LUMINE 1 shopping mall - above the Keio line concourse
• LUMINE 2 shopping mall - above JR's south and Lumine exits
• Keio Department store - above the Keio line concourse
• Keio Mall - underground mall to the southwest of the Keio line concourse
• Odakyu Ace - underground malls beneath the bus terminal by the west exit.

In addition to the above, the Metro Promenade, which is an underground mall owned by Tokyo Metro, extends eastwards from the station beneath Shinjuku-dori avenue, all the way to the adjacent Shinjuku-sanchome station with 60 exits along the way. The Metro Promenade in turn connects to Shinjuku Subnade, another underground shopping mall, which leads onto Seibu Railway's Seibu-Shinjuku station.

Shinjuku Station is connected by underground passageways and shopping malls to:

• Nishi-shinjuku Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)
• Seibu Shinjuku Station (Seibu Shinjuku Line)
• Shinjuku-nishiguchi Station (Toei Ōedo Line)
• Shinjuku-sanchome Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line and Toei Shinjuku Line)
• Tochōmae Station (Toei Ōedo Line)

[edit] Bus terminals

There is a bus terminal at the west exit servicing both local and long-distance buses, and a JR Highway Bus terminal at the new south exit.

[edit] History

Shinjuku Station opened in 1885 as a stop on Japan Railway's Akabane-Shinagawa line (now part of the Yamanote Line). Shinjuku was still a quiet community at the time and the station was not heavily trafficked at first. The opening of the Chūō Line (1889), Keio Line (1915) and Odakyu Line (1923) led to increasing traffic through the station. Subway service began in 1959.

In August 1967, a freight train carrying jet fuel bound for the U.S. air base in Tachikawa derailed and caught fire on the Chūō Rapid tracks.

The station was a major site for student protests in 1968 and 1969, the height of civil unrest in postwar Japan.

There have been plans at various points in history to connect Shinjuku into the Shinkansen network. Originally, the station was slated to be the southern terminus of the Joetsu Shinkansen line to Niigata. This plan was eventually scrapped, but an area was reserved underneath the station for Shinkansen platforms. In the future, the Chūō Shinkansen may bring high-speed rail service to Shinjuku.

On May 5, 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult attempted a chemical terrorist attack by setting off a cyanide gas device in a toilet in the underground concourse, barely a month after the gas attack on the Tokyo subway which killed 12 and injured thousands. This time the attack was thwarted by staff who extinguished the burning device.

[edit] Adjacent stations