Confusing routes, confusing displays

On Saturday 18 March 2023, two new lines were added to Tokyo's railway network: Sotetsu and Tokyu Shin-Yokohama lines. Sotetsu Shin-Yokohama line was extended from Hazawa yokohama-kokudai (hereinafter referred to as Hazawa YK) to Shin-Yokohama, while Tokyu Shin-Yokohama line was opened from Shin-Yokohama to Hiyoshi. There are now hundreds of through-services every day from Sotetsu to Tokyo via Tokyu lines and vice versa.

As the biggest railway project in more than a decade has been completed at last, it is expected that Shin-Yokohama, an interchange station of Tokaido Shinkansen high-speed rail, will be even more convenient and easier to access for people not just in Kanagawa Prefecture but also western part of Greater Tokyo.

However, when I visited the new stations on the very first day, I found that the new through-services are confusing and even chaotic as described below.

This is a route map on a wall. It covers all stations managed by SEVEN railway companies that the new through-services would call at: namely Sotetsu lines as well as JR Saikyo line, Tokyu Meguro and Toyoko lines, Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin and Namboku lines, Toei Mita line, Saitama Railway Saitama Stadium line and Tobu Tojo line. It is extremely hard to find one's destination without help.

Destination displays show confusing information as well. In Japan, trains that call at every station are generally written as "Local" with white (or black) letters. But this display is so colourful that it is not easy to comprehend what do they mean. Displays on trains also adopt the same colour patterns. Apparently not a good idea for those with colour vision deficiency.

The colourful displays indicate routes of each train, as (hopefully) the map above shows. Since trains for Tokyu Toyoko line and others for JR Saikyo line run towards the same direction, it is vital to make it clear which line does the train go. For example, there are trains for Ikebukuro via Tokyu Toyoko and Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin lines and others via JR Saikyo line. The most confusing ones can be observed in the weekend morning: a train departing Hazawa YK at 7:51 is for Kawagoe via Saikyo line, while another one at 7:55 is for Kawagoeshi via Toyoko, Fukutoshin and Tobu Tojo lines. Both trains call at Ikebukuro despite they run completely different lines. Not a few passengers will certainly take a wrong train and thus pay 140 yen more than what was supposed to be.

Any timetable revision always causes a certain level of misunderstanding and confusion, but the Sotetsu-Tokyu through-services are hard for everyone. Generally speaking, a new railway is something to be welcomed, but these new ones are quite tricky.

The end of "trains with so many doors" in Japan

Sanjo (Keihan), 26 Oct 2020

On Saturday 4th September, the last unit of Keihan 5000 series on mainline was taken out of regular service, more than 50 years after the introduction. Keihan initially planned to withdraw it in June, but deferred for three months. The series had been well known for having five sets of door per carriage, while most commuter trains in Japan have three or four.

In the late-1960s, Keihan had been struggling to deal with delays triggered by extreme congestion. Since it was not possible for the company to run more services or make existing trains longer, it decided to introduce trains with more doors. The 5000 series contributed to smooth boarding and alighting, minimising delays and thus easing congestion.

The most unique feature of the 5000 series was the seating. Second and fourth doors were used only during peak hours, and at off-peak hours the train was used as if an ordinary three-door train. As the video shows, seating could be stored when all doors were in use. To avoid troubles and accidents, the seats were stored or extracted when no passenger is on board.

The history of trains with more doors than usual started when the Keihan 5000 series was introduced. In the 1990s, railway companies in Tokyo followed Keihan. However, those in the capital did not adopt all ambitious features: only one or a few carriages per unit had five or six sets of doors, and there was no machine that stores or extracts additional seating.

Satte - Sugito-takanodai, 15 Oct 2016

In 1990, Teito Rapid Transit Authority (now Tokyo Metro) introduced 03 series with five sets of door. Tobu Railway later introduced a similar type of commuter train (20000 series). However, they were said to be infamous for being too cold in winter, as there were simply too many doors.

Keio introduced 6000 series with five sets of door as well, which was not successful.

Yokohama, 4 Feb 2014

In 1991, JR East introduced intermediate carriages of 205 series that have six sets of door. They were inserted to existing units on Yamanote Line, and later on Saikyo and Yokohama Lines. In addition, many 209 and E231 series units had six-door carriage as well from the very beginning.

Takadanobaba, 3 Feb 2014

In Tokyo, five or six-door carriages were usually inserted to the most crowded part of the unit. In other words, companies took account of location of staircases and ticket gates at major stations. The above photo is the 205 series on Saikyo Line, the second and third coaches of which are six-door carriages.

Unsurprisingly, not a few passengers disliked them because there were fewer seating than ordinary carriages. Some described it a de facto parcel train delivering workers to the office.

Tokyo, 1 Jul 2010

Those five and six-door carriages rapidly dwindled in the 2010s. The biggest reason for the decline was platform edge doors. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has been encouraging railway companies to install platform edge doors, to prevent accidents and make platforms safer especially for disabled people, but those five and six-door carriages did not fit the safety measure.

Moreover, since trains in these days are less crowded than before, thanks to railway companies' great efforts to ease congestion, such carriages with so many doors were no longer in need. Some foreigners claim that the population decline is the main cause, but it is not true, as it is still a gradual change and not applicable to major cities like Tokyo.

Obukuro - Kita-koshigaya, 29 Apr 2016

The newest one among them was Tokyu 5000 series, with three out of ten carriages per unit (the third, sixth and seventh coaches) had six sets of door. They were introduced in 2005-10 to Den-en-toshi Line, one of the most crowded line in the country. Even so, Tokyu replaced all of them with four-door coaches by 2017, in advance of installing platform edge doors. Some of them were demolished less than six years after being built.

The history of trains with more doors than usual started and ended with the Keihan 5000 series. Those trains were not necessarily great, as there were often fewer seats, but surely worth noting. They are now all gone, but it does not mean the decline of Japanese railway, as the withdrawals are aimed for better, safer rail transport in the 21st century.