International Railroad Discussion > Tokyo Monorail Joyride (Japan)

Some people don't consider monorail to be serious transportaion: an amusement park ride (Disneyland), tourist novelty (Seattle), and an incomplete project (Las Vegas). Personally, I think Las Vegas Monorail has great potential to become serious transportation, but that's a little off topic here.

Tokyo Monorail started revenue service on September 17, 1964, about two weeks before Tokaido Shinkansen started revenue service, and a month before the Tokyo Olympics began. The project's goal was to provide convenient transportation for international passengers to/from Tokyo International Airport (Haneda) for the Olympics. It wasn't the first monorail built in Japan, as Ueno Zoo started one in 1957 (still running), although it's a different type, where the cars hang below the monorail.

Tokyo Monorail's international role diminished 14 years later, when Narita Airport opened for service in 1978. All but China Airlines migrated their international flights to Narita, so Haneda became a domestic flight only airport. That changed 5 years ago, when Haneda opened their new international terminal in 2010, and international flights returned. Tokyo Monorail added a station to access the new terminal, and resumed playing an international role.

I returned to Tamachi (田町) for a scouting trip after chasing JR Freight Train #3086 earlier in the day. I saw a Tokyo-bound Shinkansen go by, then saw an airport-bound Tokyo Monorail in the distance, so I recorded the first clip for the heck of it.

That inspired me to go on a joyride, so I took a Yamanote Line train to the next station, Hamamatsu-cho (浜松町), then hopped on a Tokyo Monorail. FYI, JR Rail Pass is valid on the monorail. I recorded the second clip, a segment between Hamamatsu-cho and Tamachi where the monorail travels right along the quadruple double main. You see a Keihin Tohoku Line local, then a Joban Line (常磐線) train pacing along, then an outbound Shinkansen appear in view when the monorail turns away from the tracks.

If knowledgeable Japan railfans are wondering why a Joban Line train is travelling on the Tokaido Line tracks, the answer is Ueno-Tokyo Line (上野東京ライン) which started revenue service this March. I'll try to cover that in a later post.

I get a meet in the third clip, as I'm returning to Hamamatsu-cho. I was sitting down, so my body couldn't quite absorb the shocks from the monorail joints, so there's a lot of shaking in the video. It's 1964 technology.

In the fourth clip, I catch a Shinkansen travelling on the non-revenue Oi Line (大井回送線) which diverges from Tamachi and connects to the Shinkansen Yard next to the Tokyo Freight Terminal. You can hear a recorded announcement in English, Chinese, and Korean in the background. One of my goals of the joyride was to see if the Shinkansen Yard and the Freight Terminal were still visible from the monorail, and they weren't. New developments have gone up in the past few decades blocking their view.

Fifth clip is a bonus, where I recorded video from Shinagawa (品川) to Hamamatsu-cho onboard the Sleeper Limited Express Sunrise Seto (サンライズ瀬戸) after completing a JR Rail Pass marathon trip of all four of Japan's main islands. I'm heading toward Tokyo here. At the beginning, you see the Shinkansen Oi Line converge onto the main line, and near the end, you see the Tokyo Monorail tracks above, but I didn't catch one running. At least, I catch an outbound Shinkansen, which seems to run like streetcars these days.

FYI, speaking of islands, while Okinawa (沖縄) has no passenger rail, it does have a monorail, which I consider useful enough to be considered serious transportation. That's all for another quick post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/15 09:44 by cchan006.

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Thank you very much for the Japan uploads. I've had one trip to the country, and definately need another. A railfans delight. Chris UK.

Cool stuff, not enough Monorail Posts on TO.  I agree, Monorails are a great alternative to Rapid Transit Modes such as Bus & even Light-Rail.  Thanks for posting!
Los Angeles missed out on a great opportunity for an Alweg-built system in the 60s.
Seattle I think has potential for extension/expansion at least as far as King Street Station via the Waterfront.
Las Vegas has great potential for a Monorail Transit System, if they stop thinking Light-Rail.
Anaheim is missing out on a Monorail Line from ARTIC to Disneyland Resort, their future Streetcar maybe good but it'll have plenty of challenges too.
Monorails make sense, they're electric trains, they don't take up much room which is really critical in extremely high-density areas where the only room left to build is up!  Also, todays technological advances could make Monorails quite ideal, not 1960s tech.  It seems that cities prefer Light-Rail over Monorails because of cost (more Monorail systems I think would make the cost go down), besides Monorails don't have to worry about traffic/pedestrian accidents like most Light-Rail systems in the US have to deal with daily.
Maybe someday Monorails will still make their way in the US.

Amtrak562 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cool stuff, not enough Monorail Posts on TO.  I
> agree, Monorails are a great alternative to Rapid
> Transit Modes such as Bus & even Light-Rail.
>  Thanks for posting!
> Los Angeles missed out on a great opportunity for
> an Alweg-built system in the 60s.
> Seattle I think has potential for
> extension/expansion at least as far as King Street
> Station via the Waterfront.
> Las Vegas has great potential for a Monorail
> Transit System, if they stop thinking Light-Rail.
> Anaheim is missing out on a Monorail Line from
> ARTIC to Disneyland Resort, their future Streetcar
> maybe good but it'll have plenty of challenges
> too.
> Monorails make sense, they're electric trains,
> they don't take up much room which is really
> critical in extremely high-density areas where the
> only room left to build is up!  Also, todays
> technological advances could make Monorails quite
> ideal, not 1960s tech.  It seems that cities
> prefer Light-Rail over Monorails because of cost
> (more Monorail systems I think would make the cost
> go down), besides Monorails don't have to worry
> about traffic/pedestrian accidents like most
> Light-Rail systems in the US have to deal with
> daily.
> Maybe someday Monorails will still make their way
> in the US.

I can think of at least 3 other monorail lines within striking distance from Tokyo, the Tama Monorail (多摩モノレール), Chiba Monorail (千葉モノレール), and Shonan Monorail (湘南モノレール). Chiba and Shonan monorails are SAFEGE type, hanging below the monorail, while Tama Monorail is a variation of ALWEG type, which is similar to Tokyo Monorail and runs on top of the monorail. FYI, Tokyo Monorail has a respectable top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph).

Shonan Monorail makes a connection with Enoden (江ノ電), as mentioned by other TO members who have posted reports from Japan, so it can be railfanned together.

Two more systems in Japan that I know of off the top of my head are Osaka Monorail and Kokura Monorail (小倉モノレール), both modified ALWEGs. So at least in Japan, monorail has become a practical transportation solution within highly dense urban areas without the need to dig underground for expensive subway lines.

While Japan still has many streetcar and light rail lines, almost all of them were survivors from the massive abandonments in in the 1950s to the 1970s due to road congestion (cars and buses). Japan instead replaced those travel corridors by expanding the subway network in various cities, but no new streetcar/light rail lines have been built since then. Even the Toyama Light Rail was a conversion of an old railroad ROW, not a brand new line built from scratch.

So in light of your comments, I wonder about America's so-called transportation policies, where there's emphasis on building new streetcar/light rail lines to conflict with existing road traffic while a solution already exists which avoids that problem.