Tokyo Station

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Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station

Tokyo Station (東京駅, Tōkyō-eki^?) is a train station located in the Marunouchi business district of Tokyo, near the Imperial Palace grounds and the Ginza commercial district. It is the starting point and terminus for most of Japan's Shinkansen lines and is also served by many local and regional commuter lines of Japan Railways and is connected to the Tokyo Subway.

Tokyo Station is the main intercity rail terminal in Tokyo, the busiest when measured by number of trains per day (over 4,000), the eighth-busiest in terms of passenger throughput in Japan.^[1]

[edit] Lines

Tokyo Station from above

The following lines pass through or terminate at Tokyo Station:

• East Japan Railway Company
  • Chūō Line
  • Keihin-Tōhoku Line
  • Keiyō Line
  • Sōbu Line (including Narita Express service)
  • Tōkaidō Main Line
  • Yamanote Line
  • Yokosuka Line
  • Tōhoku Shinkansen
  • Yamagata Shinkansen
  • Akita Shinkansen
  • Jōetsu Shinkansen
  • Nagano Shinkansen
• Central Japan Railway Company
  • Tōkaidō Shinkansen
• Tokyo Metro
  • Marunouchi Line

The station is linked by a series of underground passageways to the Otemachi underground (subway) station complex served by the Tōzai, Chiyoda, Hanzomon and Mita lines.

Tokyo Station is also a major intercity bus terminal, with regular midday service to several cities in the Kantō region and overnight service to the Kansai and Tohoku regions.

[edit] Layout

Tokyo Station Marunouchi Side

The main station facade on the western side of the station is brick-built, surviving from the time when the station opened in 1914. The main station consists of 10 platforms, serving 20 tracks, raised above street level running in a north-south direction. The main concourse runs east-west below the platforms. The Shinkansen lines are on the east (or Yaesu) side of the station, along with a multi-story Daimaru department store.

Underground are the two Sōbu / Yokosuka line platforms serving four tracks (five stories below ground level) to the west of the station; the two Keiyō line platforms serving four tracks are four stories below ground some hundreds of meters to the south of the main station with moving sidewalks to serve connecting passengers. The Keiyō line serves passengers going to Tokyo Disneyland and Makuhari Messe.

The whole complex is linked by an extensive system of underground passageways which merge with surrounding commercial buildings and shopping centres.

[edit] Ground platforms

[edit] Shinkansen Platforms

[edit] Yokosuka/Sōbu Platforms

[edit] Keiyo Platforms

[edit] Tokyo Metro Platforms

[edit] History

Taxis line up in front of the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station.

In 1889, a Tokyo municipal committee drew up plans for an elevated railway line connecting the Tōkaidō Main Line terminal at Shinbashi to the Nippon Railway (now Tohoku Main Line) terminal at Ueno. The Imperial Diet resolved in 1896 to construct a new station on this line called Central Station (中央停車場, Chuo Teishajo^?), located directly in front of the gardens of the Imperial Palace.

Construction was delayed due to the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, but finally commenced in 1908. The three-story station building was designed by architect Tatsuno Kingo (who also designed Manseibashi Station and the nearby Bank of Japan building) as a restrained celebration of Japan's costly victory in the Russo-Japanese War. The building is often rumored to be fashioned after Amsterdam's main station, although there is little evidence to support the theory. Terunobu Fujimori, a scholar of the Western architecture, deny the rumor by studying Tatsuno's styles, as well as the building itself. ^[2]

Tokyo Station opened on December 18, 1914; the Chuo Main Line extension to the station was completed in 1919. During this early era, the station only had gates on the Marunouchi side, with the north side serving as an exit and the south side serving as an entrance.

In 1921, Prime Minister Hara Takashi was assassinated at the south gates. The Yaesu side of the station opened in 1929.

Much of the station was destroyed in two B-29 firebombings on May 25 and June 25, 1945. These bombings shattered the impressive glass domes. The station was quickly rebuilt within the year, but simple angular roofs were built in place of the domes, and the restored building was only two stories tall instead of three.

The Yaesu side was also rebuilt following the war, but the rebuilt structure was damaged by fire in 1949, and the Yaesu side was then significantly upgraded with a contemporary exterior and large Daimaru department store. The new Yaesu side facilities opened in 1953 and were later used to accommodate the first Shinkansen services in 1964. The Yaesu side was partially rebuilt again in 1991 to accommodate the Shinkansen extension from Ueno.

The station complex is presently being redeveloped. The Marunouchi side will be restored and the surrounding area converted into a broad plaza extending into a walkway toward the Imperial Palace, with space for bus and taxi ranks: this construction is scheduled for completion in 2010. On the Yaesu side, the current multi-story exterior will be replaced by a much lower structure with a large canopy covering outdoor waiting and loading areas, and twin high-rise towers at each end. This project will be completed in 2007.

There are also less definite plans to build a spur from the nearby Toei Asakusa Line, which would provide Tokyo Station a second direct connection to the subway network, and also possibly provide faster connections from the station to Tokyo's airports, Haneda and Narita.

[edit] Adjacent stations

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Tokyo Station

[edit] References

Coordinates: 35.6809° N 139.7675° E