 Tokyo has the largest most comprehensive rapid transit system in the world, with over a hundred rail lines and a population comparable to a medium-sized country like Canada. Of course, as you'd expect, the city's railways have numerous interesting and frankly unique elements that people around the world can learn from, and cities can try and emulate. From the suburban trains to private railways to the central subway system, Tokyo has multiple different rapid transit networks. This video will tell you everything you need to know to get familiar with Tokyo's trains in the next 20 minutes, so strap in and let's hop on board! Creating this video has been a task long in the making, and I started writing this and rewriting this over 3 months ago, so if you enjoy, please like and subscribe for more, and consider supporting the channel on Patreon. I also really want to thank Stanley, Shin, Jason, and JR Urbane Network for their contributions and help with this video. Check out the description for their social media details. One of the biggest challenges in creating such a large video on such a large city is deciding not just what to include, but what not to. Tokyo's railway network has three different gauges, over a hundred lines, many gadget bonds, and two separate city center metro systems. And given its enormous scale, I won't be addressing future expansion, limited as it is, or detailed service patterns, at least in this video. I also won't include a detailed discussion of Yokohama, Kawasaki, Saitama, or Chiba, which are the major satellite cities. As always, to talk about urban rail transportation, we need to first get a rough understanding of the urban area, and in this case it's even more important because Tokyo is huge. All of the aforementioned cities, besides Saitama, surround Tokyo Bay, which is here, while the Tokyo metropolitan area as a whole lies east northeast of the famous dormant volcano Mount Fuji. Also of note are the Imperial Palace at the center of Tokyo, Yoyogi Park, and Meiji Jengu Shrine to the west, and the Harborfront Resort area of Odaiba, many of which played a role in the recent Tokyo Summer Olympics. Despite the huge size of Tokyo, if you're flying to the city, you'll most likely arrive at one of two major airports, Haneda, 13 kilometers to the south of the city center, or Narita, a whopping 55 kilometers to the east. Fortunately, you won't have to stress out on Tokyo's spaghetti-like expressway network because both have multiple excellent rail connections. Connecting Tokyo with the rest of Japan and some of the satellite cities with Tokyo are the Tokaido Shinkansen, the original Japanese bullet train line which runs southwest of the city and the Tohoku Shinkansen, which runs to the country's north. Both lines come together at Tokyo Station, the city's main hub, but they don't through run and instead operate as side-by-side terminals. Tokyo Station is a massive hub, and is one of the largest stations in the city, along with Ueno, Ikebukuro, Shinagawa, which is said to be the Tokyo hub of the new Chuo Shinkansen Maglev line, Shibuya, with its famous Scramble Crossing, and Shinjuku, the most used railway station in the world. These stations tend to each be at the center of their own central business district, easily as large or larger than the one you'd find in any decently large city of at least a few million people, the most important one likely being Chiyoda, which surrounds Tokyo Station. And that naturally takes us right into the most important transit line in Tokyo, and possibly my favorite transit line of all time, I did put it on the thumbnail after all, the Yamanote Line. The Yamanote Line is a roughly 35 kilometer, 30 station oblong rail loop around central Tokyo, which serves all of the aforementioned major rail stations, central business districts, as well as numerous rapid transit interchanges with three or more connecting lines, that first opened all the way back in 1885. The line is so important to the city that it moves more people each day than even a fairly large system like the Berlin U-Bahn, plus the Berlin S-Bahn, and then some, all on a single line. It does this with gigantic 11 car trains, three meters wide, with full bench seating that come every two minutes or so during peak periods. I make a big deal about cities like Hong Kong that have metro trains with five doors per side, but Demant has been so high historically on the Yamanote Line that in the past cars with six doors and fold up seating have even been used. Of course, like many lines in Tokyo, the Yamanote Line now features platform safety gates and has more traditional subway-like cars with four doors per side that run on 1067 millimeter narrow gauge track and with 1500 volt DC overhead power lines. A little disclaimer, given the variety of railways and rolling stock in Tokyo, the number of cars I state should broadly be seen as a maximum. A mixture of different trains do sometimes operate, though not on the Yamanote Line. Now, while the Yamanote Line trains are virtually indistinguishable from those you might see on any metro system, besides their great length, which makes them even larger than those seen on London's Crossrail, the line is actually part of the JR East Suburban Railway Network, which, as its name suggests, is run by East Japan Railway Company. The Yamanote Line in particular is one of the network's inner suburban services. These services cover a number of different lines, which generally use trains similar in character to those used on the Yamanote Line, and sometimes literally the same trains, but which tend to have wider, less metro-like spacings with stations often several kilometers apart and mostly operate above ground, sometimes at grade, sometimes on embankments, and sometimes on elevated structures, all using narrow gauge and overhead wire electrification. These include, in order of first construction, the Joban Local Line, which parallels the Yamanote Line through the eastern part of central Tokyo, and which is so popular and heavily used that a new parallel rapid transit line was constructed in the 90s to help relieve congestion. This new line, which was originally just called the Joban New Line, is now known as the Tsukuba Express. The line, like many in the Tokyo area, has a mix of different service levels, including a rapid service that provides a fast option between Tokyo and Ibaraki, and uses six-car trains similar to the Joban Local, which, quite unusually for Tokyo, operate on a mixture of AC and DC power in order to minimize interference with a weather station. There's also the Keihinto Hoku Line, which runs from Omiya Station in Saitama to Yokohama, again paralleling the Yamanote Line through the eastern part of central Tokyo. The Chuo Sobu Line, which runs east-west from Chiba across Tokyo, intersecting the Yamanote Line at Akihabara and Shinjuku. The Saikyo Line, which parallels the line through the western part of central Tokyo. As it turns out, some of these trains run on a very unique line known as the Rinkai Line, which is the only major subway-style line which carries JR suburban-style trains, in this case roughly 12 kilometers on a mostly underground alignment that runs through Odaiba. There are also three lines which come together to form an outer rail loop for Tokyo, known as the Nambu, Musashino, and Keio Lines. The Keio Line connects east from Tokyo Station, where it meets the Yamanote Line to Chiba, but also enables services from Tokyo and Chiba to continue onto the Musashino Line, which forms most of the outer 72 kilometer rail loop around Tokyo, and is shared with freight despite having large underground sections with long tunnels. The Musashino Line was actually built in part as an alternative route for freight, particularly of the dangerous variety, as freight has long used and continues to use tracks parallel to the Yamanote Line through western central Tokyo. Passenger services on this line were largely implemented to placate local residents in the lower density areas it runs through. The last part of the loop on the southern side is formed by the Nambu Line, which connects to the Musashino Line's western terminus and runs to Kawasaki. Now, I mentioned before that the Yamanote and subsequent lines were inner suburban services, and indeed that means there are outer suburban services. The main differences here are that the outer suburban services tend to use longer trains, often with as many as 15 cars, that also feature bathrooms, and double-decker green, first-class cars, which are rather unique given the narrow gauge. These services also run with less frequent headways of five or so minutes and express a rapid service pattern that see less stops when paralleling inner suburban services. That being said, the infrastructure and rolling stock across the various services is virtually all intercapable with the same narrow gauge and 1500 volt DC overhead power supply being used. The outer suburban services include an order of opening, the Tohoku Line, Yokosuka Line, Joban Rapid Service, and Tokaido Line, which all parallel the Yamanote Line through the eastern part of central Tokyo. As you can tell, that corridor from Shinagawa through Tokyo Station up to Oweno is highly congested with service, with the Yamanote and Keihin Tohoku services being particularly crowded. Since land in the area is scarce and service demand is high, the Oweno Tokyo Line as it's known was constructed between the namesake stations. This was not an easy task, as there was not enough space in parts of the corridor between Tokyo Station and Oweno given the various existing suburban tracks and the Shinkansen tracks for an additional pair, and that meant building a second deck carrying narrow gauge suburban tracks over the Shinkansen tracks for part of the route, which enables more services to run through between the north and the Tokaido Line. Running across Toko East-West, there are additional outer suburban services, including the Chuo Rapid Service, which runs from Tokyo Station West along the Chuo Sobu Line route as an express service, and the Sobu Rapid Service, which runs from Tokyo Station East along the Chuo Sobu Line route also as an express service. Both of these services, like many of the other JR services I've just introduced you to, turn into other services at their terminals, allowing long journeys to be made on a single train. JR East also operates the Narita Express Service, which provides airport express trains that actually split at Tokyo Station to serve various destinations such as Shinjuku, Omiya, and Yokohama. It's fun to note that the newer rolling stock on the next bears a striking resemblance to Dutch ICM trains. While JR's various services are awesome, they don't provide fine-grade coverage of the numerous neighborhoods through central Tokyo, and are somewhat limited by their original surface alignments and large trains, and thus the core of the entire urban railway network is the subway or metro. Well, actually in Tokyo it's both. First, let's look at the Metro, Tokyo Metro, a nine-line 180-station system. The oldest two lines of the Tokyo Metro are the Ginza and Marunouchi lines, which both operate rather small, six-car third-rail powered trains on standard gauge tracks. I should also mention that like many rail lines in Tokyo, each station features a unique music jingle, which provides an auditory reminder for which station you're at. The one for Omote Sando is still burnt into my memory. The Ginza line is actually the oldest subway in Asia, opening in 1927 and is fairly short with just 19 stops over 14 kilometers traveling northeast to southwest, connecting Asakusa, Ginza, and Shibuya. The Marunouchi line is substantially longer, with 28 stops over 27 kilometers of track, forming a U which opens west, and connects Ikebukuro, Tokyo Station, and Shinjuku with a branch on its southern arm. The rest of Tokyo Metro's lines are powered by 1500 volt DC overhead lines and operate on narrow gauge tracks. These include the Namboku Line, which has six-car platforms and connects north to south through Tokyo, from Shimo to Yatsuya to Meguro, with 19 stations over 21 kilometers of track. The Hibiya Line, which has seven-car platforms and has 22 stops over 20 kilometers, connecting Ueno, Ginza, and Ebisu from northeast to southwest. The Hanzomon Line, which has 10-car platforms and connects from Oshige to Otomachi and Shibuya, with 14 stops over 17 kilometers. The rest of the lines on Tokyo Metro feature 10-car platforms and some degree of local and express service. The Tozai Line has 23 stops over 30 kilometers, including Nakano, Nihombashi, and Nishifuna Bashi from east to west. The Chiyoda Line has 20 stops over 24 kilometers of track, connecting Nishinipori, Otomachi, and Yoyogi from northeast to the southwest. The Yurakucho Line, with 24 stops over 28 kilometers, connects from Wakoshi to Ikebukuro, and Shinkiba from northwest to southeast, and is interlined with the Fukutoshin Line, which has 16 stops over 20 kilometers of route, and connects Wakoshi, Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Shibuya from northwest to southeast. Now, in addition, there are also railways which are owned separately that act as independent extensions of Tokyo Metro lines. These include the Saitama Rapid Railway, which extends the Namboku Line into Saitama, in particular to serve Saitama Stadium, which was a venue for the 2002 World Cup, and the Toyo Rapid Railway, which plays a similar role but extends the Tozai Line further into Chiba. Tokyo Subway is the Toei Subway, which is a four-line 106 station system that first opened in 1960, with the Asakusa Line. Unlike Tokyo Metro, all lines on the system are powered by 1500v DC overhead wire. The Asakusa Line has 20 stops over 18 kilometers, and connects Asakusa, Shimbashi, and Magome from northeast to southwest, a general direction it shares with the Ginza, Hibiya, Hanzomon, and Shioda lines across central Tokyo. Unlike many Tokyo Metro lines, the Asakusa Line runs on standard gauge and supports up to 8-car trains. The Mita Line has 27 stops over 27 kilometers, connecting Nishidae, Otamachi, and Meguro with a wide U opening west. The Mita Line operates 8-car trains on narrow gauge tracks. The Shinjuku Line has up to 10 car trains on 1372mm Scotch gauge track, something which is used in Tokyo but not in its namesake, Scotland. The line has 21 stops over 23 kilometers, and connects Shinjuku to Iwamotocho and Motoyawata, from east to west. The last line in Toei, and the most unusual is the Owaito Line, which is a 38-stop over 40 kilometer long fully underground line connecting from Hikari Gaioka to Shinjuku and a number of central Tokyo locations before looping back on itself, creating a shape that reminds me a lot of the future Paris Line 15. The Owaito Line is also very weird because its trains use linear induction motors, allowing for a lower floor height and smaller tunnels. Now, the metro and subway are mostly separate, but interlining does actually occur between the southern part of the Mita Line and the Namboku Line, as well as with virtually all transport in Tokyo and many convenience stores and vending machines, you can also pay using the same transit carts, Suika and Pasmo. Combine the systems for most of what you would consider the subway or underground system, which has just 13 of Tokyo's over 100 lines. An interesting thing you might have noticed is that no lines travel under the Imperial Palace. You've probably heard that in Japan, fully private companies provide transit service, and this is true. Private railways provide a high quality service, and many of them have evolved over the years from interurban train origins into rapid transit style service, with some longer distance services blended in. These private railways are also involved in real estate and integrated transit oriented development, which form the inspiration for the Hong Kong MTR's rail plus property model. Some of the private railways also have stakes in related businesses, like train manufacturing. They all operate a variety of different services from vacation trains to express commuter services to mass transit. The private railways are Kesei, Tobu, Seibu, Keio, Odakyu, Tokyu and KQ. Kesei serves the eastern suburbs along the northern edge of Tokyo Bay and provides service to Narita Airport on its entirely standard gauge network. Kesei's lines include the Narita Sky Access line, which reuses right away from the never-built Narita Shinkansen and sees the skyline are limited express trains, the fastest non-Shinkansen train in the country. This service also takes advantage of the separately owned Hokusou line for its connection into central Tokyo. Tobu serves the northern suburbs and is Tokyo's largest private railway, with an over 450 kilometer network of narrow gauge tracks. The company has links to tourism and vacation destinations with the Skytree, one of the world's tallest towers and a project developed by Tobu, sitting adjacent to its main Tokyo hub, as well as a line to Niko. Tobu also has a long orbital service known as the Urban Park Line, with a unique connection at Kishawa station, where the relatively frequent services must all pull in and then reverse back out to continue. Seibu serves the northwestern suburbs, along two main lines with narrow gauge tracks. Don't confuse Seibu's Shinjuku line for Toei Shinjuku line. Odakyu serves the west by southwestern suburbs with its spindly narrow gauge network, as well as locations like Hakone with its famous romance car services that let you sit in the front of the train. A super interesting project undertaken by the railway is a massive program to progressively grade separate its main line that previously featured a ton of grade crossings. This took the line underground in areas like Shimokitazawa and above ground on a giant four-track elevated structure further to the west. A project likely a sign of things to come on other private railways that have started the process of buying land adjacent to their corridors to execute similar projects. What's interesting to remember is that most of the private railways including Odakyu began as interurbans and have incrementally transitioned into high-capacity rapid transit systems over the years, which is a pretty amazing what could have been for systems like the LA Pacific Electric. Tokyo serves the southwestern suburbs and Yokohama with a mesh of narrow gauge lines and previously built trains via Tokyo Car Corporation, who is now Jtrek, the Japan Transport Engineering Company part of JR East. KQ provides connections to Haneda Airport and Yokohama on its linear standard gauge network, which features many grade crossings including a notable one south of Shinagawa station, which is one of the ways the private operators stand out from the core rapid transit network. KQ Kamada as opposed to Kamada station is a very unique narrow elevated station which acts as a branch point between the KQ mainline and the line to Haneda Airport with inbound and outbound tracks for both branches on different levels. The last major private railway is Keio which serves the western suburbs and is infamous for its level crossings. Unlike most of the private railways, Keio has a major line which runs with a different gauge, the narrow gauge in Okashira line. The rest of Keio's lines are Scotch gauge, very unusual, which brings us into an interesting discussion. You see, the reason for the various standards on the core rapid transit lines in Tokyo and to a lesser extent the private railways is to enable through operation. This allows a combination of private railways and rarely JR lines with rapid transit lines to form gigantic cross regional services akin to the JR East network with large trains and various service levels. A major distinction being that express services are more frequently provided on the JR network by quad tracking as opposed to timed overtakes and passing loops more commonly seen on the subway through running lines. This type of model where your suburban train might travel into a subway and then back out onto another suburban rail line hasn't been developed to the same scale anywhere else in the world, but is brilliant. As it massively boosts the value of subway lines, a practice said to have at least inspired the RER in Paris. This is why the Shinjuku line uses Scotch gauge, enabling through running to the Keio main line. There's also through service which runs from the Hibiya line north onto the Tobu Skytree line, the Chuo Sobu line into the Tozai line from both sides, the Chiyoda line north onto the JR Joban local and south onto the Odakyu Odawara line, which means yes, a long distance romance car train can be seen in the subway. The Hanzomon line north onto the Tobu Skytree line and south onto the Tokyo Denentoshi line, the Namboku line south onto the Tokyo Maguro line, the Yurakucho line north onto the Tobu Tojo and Sebu Yurakucho lines, the Asakusa line to the Kesei main line north and KQ main line south connecting the major airports with three railways. This is even more impressive as the line features platform gates and yet trains with different door layout are able to operate by communicating their particular layout with the gates. Through running is also mostly successfully considered in the planning of future rapid transit and private railway lines, though it sometimes leaves lines with strange standards when through running doesn't end up happening. The Mita line as well as the Namboku line, which as mentioned interlines with it connects into the Tokyo Maguro line. The ultimate through running happens on the Fukutoshin line, with services north to the Tobu Tojo and Sebu Yurakucho lines and south to the Tokyo Tojoku line, which then allows trains to continue further into the Yokohama Minato Marae line, a private subway in Yokohama. This enables trains to run across up to four different lines on one run. Now you're probably wondering how this can be pulled off in practice, wouldn't there be a capacity crunch? Well as we know, through running is a lot more efficient than turning trains back for one, which actually traditionally happened where private railways met the Yamanote line, and for two, this is part of why Tokyo has built so many parallel lines. Operationally, the through running has sometimes been managed by swapping drivers, depending on what line is being operated on, and trains are managed like a pool between operators. Riders can get on any train operating the service they want to ride and they're charged based on the distance they travel, encouraging shorter trips. Of course, the use of the subway system by private railways is also an important consideration when people talk about the completely self-made nature of the private railways, since in reality, they're still quite dependent on publicly owned infrastructure. Tokyo Metro, for example, is owned by the Tokyo and Japan governments. Now one thing Tokyo does not have a lot of is trams. There are really only two trams in the city and they have little on-street operation. These are the Tokyo Setagaya line and the Toten Arakawa line, both of which use Scotch gauge, as was common on Tokyo's mostly gone urban tram network, which thanks to the inter-urban routes of railways like Keio and Kasei still persists in some places. So if Tokyo doesn't use trams, then what does it use for high-capacity local transport? Well, buses, but also lots and lots of people movers and monorails. These lines fill in the gaps between other services and connect important destinations and include two crystal mover automated people movers systems, the nepori toneri liner, which fills in a gap north from the north end of the Yamanote line that was previously served by buses, and the Yurika-Mome line, which connects Shimbashi with a number of waterfront developments and to Odaiba via the Rainbow Bridge, as well as to the Rinkai and Yurakucho lines. There are also a bunch of monorail lines which use Hitachi monorail technology. These include the Disney Resort line, which connects Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea to the JR Keio line, the Tamatoshi monorail, which is an orbital monorail in western Tokyo that connects between a number of private railways and the JR Chuo and Nambu lines, and the Tokyo Monorail, which provides a local express monorail service, you've heard that right, to Haneda Airport as well as to a number of other waterfront areas. As a bonus, you also have the Chiba Urban Monorail. Yes, yes, I know I said I wouldn't talk about Chiba, but this suspended monorail, which connects to the JR Keio and Subu lines, as well as a number of Keisai lines, is one that should be in any transit lovers repertoire. And so with that, we have the Tokyo Rail Network, from the private railways to Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway, and the JR East Suburban Network, that all come together to provide the world's best urban rail service. Stay tuned for more videos on transit in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and thanks for watching.