Tōhoku Main Line

The Tōhoku Main Line (東北本線, Tōhoku-honsen^?) is a 575.7 km long railway line operated by the East Japan Railway Company. Though officially the line starts from Tokyo Station in Chiyoda, Tokyo, most of the long-distance trains actually begin at Ueno Station in Taitō, Tokyo, and pass through such cities as Saitama, Utsunomiya, Fukushima, and Sendai, before reaching the end of the line in Morioka. The Tōhoku Main Line runs mostly parallel to the Tōhoku Shinkansen.

The 159.9 km long portion of the line between Ueno Station and Kuroiso Station in Nasushiobara, Tochigi is often referred to as the (JR) Utsunomiya Line. A portion of the Tōhoku Main Line is also shared with the Keihin-Tōhoku Line (29.6 km between Tokyo Station and Ōmiya Station in Ōmiya-ku, Saitama) and the Saikyō Line (18.0 km between Akabane Station in the Kita ward of Tokyo and Ōmiya Station).

History

The construction of the Tōhoku Main Line began in the Kantō region and extended to the north end of Honshū, and the city of Aomori. It is one of oldest railway lines in Japan, with construction beginning in the late 19th century. Until November 1, 1906, the current Tōhoku Main Line was run by a private company Nippon Railway. In 1883, the first segment between Ueno and Kumagaya opened. In 1885, it was extended to Utsunomiya, but the Tone River still had to be crossed by boat. It was not until the construction of the Tone River Bridge in 1886 that Utsunomiya and Ueno were finally directly connected. The line gradually extended further to the north; to Kōriyama, Sendai, Ichinoseki and Morioka. In 1891, the segment between Morioka and Aomori opened, creating the longest continuous railway line in Japan.

After 1906, the line was nationalized and became the Tōhoku Main Line run by the Ministry of Railways. When Tokyo Station opened in 1925, the Tōhoku Main Line extended from Ueno to the new station. Until the 1950s, this segment was used and many trains ran through both the Tōkaidō Main Line and Tōhoku Main Line. However, when the Tōhoku Shinkansen arrived, it used land previously reserved for the tracks of mid and long-distance Tōhoku Main Line trains. As a result, only a small number of commuter lines such as the Keihin-Tōhoku Line now run to Tokyo from the north, making Tokyo Station's status as part of the Tōhoku Main Line somewhat circumspect. This is set to be remedied by the end of fiscal year 2013, when the under-construction Tōhoku Through Line is completed, allowing through service between the Tōkaidō Line and the Utsunomiya and Jōban Lines.

In 2002, the Tōhoku Shinkansen was further extended from Morioka to Hachinohe and the operations of the local track segment between those two cities was turned over to Iwate Ginga Railway (IGR) and Aoimori Railway.^[1] With the extension of the Tōhoku Shinkansen to Shin-Aomori station in 2010, the segment between Hachinohe and Aomori was delegated to the Aoimori Railway Company. The shortened Tōhoku Main Line is now the second-longest line in Japan, after the Sanin Main Line.

Station list

Utsunomiya Line

From Ueno to Kuroiso

Southern Tōhoku Main Line

From Kuroiso to Sendai

• ●: All rapid trains stop
• *: Some rapid trains stop
• |: All rapid trains pass

Central Tōhoku Main Line

From Sendai to Morioka

References