Tsurumi line is a commuter rail in Yokohama and Kawasaki cities, roughly 20 km (13 miles) south of Tokyo. The line is just 9.7 km (6 miles) long including two short branch lines, and the lines lie in an industrial district with factories and plants. Not only passenger trains but also freight trains run.
Despite being in large cities with a population of 3.7 million and 1.5 million people respectively, Tsurumi line looks like a railway in a rural town. It is fully electrified (except a few sidings for freight trains), but passenger trains are formed of just three coaches. Trains run every five minutes in the morning but every 20 minutes during off-peak times between Tsurumi and Hama-Kasawaki. There are significantly fewer services on branch lines: every 80 minutes on Umi-Shibaura branch line and just three trains a day on Okawa branch line (weekend). All stations but Tsurumi have been unstaffed since 1971, and some stations are so shabby that look abandoned.
The line had been served by secondhand trains reallocated from other lines for decades, but a brand new E131 series was introduced in December 2023. It is the first "genuine" new train since the line was nationalised in 1943.
Since 16th March 2024, all Tsurumi line services have been driver-only. Thus, there will be no conductor onboard. The new train will make the service even more efficient, environmentally friendly and less costly than before.
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