International Railroad Discussion > Japan Trip Part 10 - Ochanomizu

If you want the iconic Tokyo rail shot, you have to go to Ochanomizu via the Marunouchi line subway or one of many JR lines, and head for the Hijiri Bridge to get a multi-train shot with the river as background. You'll see lots of non-railfans snapping the same picture because it's an Instagram phenomenon now, but don't stop with that shot.  There are lots of good photo angles in the surrounding blocks, with lots of bridges, viaducts and other elements to frame your photo.  

1)  The classic over-under shot from Hijiri Bridge - a Marunouchi-line subway train pops out of the tunnel and immediately traverses a bridge over the Kanda River, while a Class E353 EMU on a Chuo Main Line Limited Express heads east toward Tokyo Station.   The Class E353 EMUs have tilt capability for higher speeds on the Chuo Main Line. 
2) Zooming in - you can see a westbound Chuo-Sobu line local train coming out of Akihabara Station and crossing the Kanda River, about to enter Ochanomizu JR Station. 
3)  And if you go one bridge west to the Ochanomizu Bridge and look west you get this view.  Here's another Class E353 on a westbound Chuo Limited Express.
 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/25 14:10 by dwatry.

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4)  Another shot from the Hijiri bridge of a Marunouchi line train heading into the tunnel, and a Chuo-Sobu line local coming across the top on the bridge. 
5)  If you walk east down to the Shohei Bridge you can get great views of the Chuo-Sobu line trains going across the bridge over the Kanda River. 
6)  On into the evening - tried a short time exposure with no tripod.
 

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7)  From the Shohei Bridge with a long lens you can also shoot the Marunouchi Line crossing the Kanda River a little upstream.  That's the Hijiri Bridge behind the train.
8)  On the Ochanomizu station platform there are also some good angles - here's a Chuo-Sobu line local train coming down off the bridge from Akihabara into the station. 
9)  Chuo Line Rapid heading toward Tokyo Station.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/25 21:44 by dwatry.

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10) An eastbound Chuo-Sobu line local coming into nearby Akihabara Station.
11) A westbound Chuo-Sobu line local coming into Akihabara as the light fades.  

 

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Those are great locations and beautiful photos, really enjoyed them.

Excellent report of the Ochanomizu area!

Ochanomizu means "Water for Tea" where ocha = tea, mizu = water. You made a trek to the 400+ year old Himeji Castle on your trip, and here, too, has ~400 year history, although Tokyo modernization means it requires some effort to find evidence of history.

Successor to the first Shogun (Tokugawa Ieyasu), Tokugawa Hidetada (ruled 1605 to 1623) is known to have drank tea brewed with spring water at Ochanomizu, hence the location's name. And Tokugawa Shogunate's reign is known as Edo Era, Edo = old name of Tokyo. So beyond the Instagram popularity, your visit here now has much more meaning.

I visited the area last year to collect materials to document Tokyo's railroading, specifically their excellent subway system. Met non-railfans with Smartphones, point-and-shoots, and SLRs taking photos from Hijiri Bridge. "Hijiri Bashi" is one of the locations promoted by JR East as part of their "I love Chuo Line" marketing, so it boasts a variety of visitors, locals, and tourists from within Japan and international.

On a more recent trip, I might have spotted a celebrity, too. She was minding her own business onboard a Chuo Line train, so I didn't take a photo, but if you visit Japan enough, you'll eventually run into one, as I did 10+ years ago, with a photo posted here on TO to prove it. Her musical group sings songs related to trains (lyrics of viaducts, crossings, color of trains, etc) so it's not far off topic. I might be able to elaborate later on one of the reports I'm collecting materials on.

I remember visiting this location on my first visit to Tokyo in 1971, as I had seen a photo taken here in a railfan magazine and I knew it as one place I could photograph [ = in daylight, out in the open ] the rolling stock on this TRTA line.  Unfortunately the brief time allotted turned up only the 500 class cars ( Photo 1 ), the newest -- but it was non-rush hour.
    Photo 2:  The split-level island platform really fascinated me, not sure I had ever seen anything like that in so narrow a width.
    Photo 3:  Not the usual view.  A long outer suburban dmu rake is on the Sobu line, a not uncommon sight then.

To be continued.......

SZ



 

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I thought going a little farther west produced some scenic scenes, but the main attraction for me in this area was the track layout, going from the flying junction at O'mizu that got the tracks arranged by direction, and then the flyover ( Photo 6 ) to get them into a fast / slow pairing.
I am going from memory here, but as I recall in 1971 'regular' Chuo line services shared the slow lines and its station stops with Sobu trains, while the Chuo Rapid Service used the fast lines;  these latter were distinguished by the placards on the ends as seen in these photos.

SZ

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Photo 7:  This is two stations west:  I am standing at the east end of the Iidabashi Station platform looking east, with a dmu rake on the through tracks, and a DD13 switching the small yard and industrial sidings that have since completely disappeared.  That was a busy location back then, you "always" saw a DD13 working there;  I think building materials alone kept that location quite active, and the cramped area would have made prompt car turnover important.  At more or less a right angle to the through lines, it would be a good inspiration for modeling if you liked switching freight cars.

With best regards, SZ

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Steinzeit2 Wrote:
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> Unfortunately the brief time allotted
> turned up only the 500 class cars ( Photo 1 ), the
> newest -- but it was non-rush hour.

Older Classes 300 & 400 would have been a tough catch anyway, even in 1971. Class 500s were already new in 1957. Based on research, Marunouchi Line was already mixing 300/400/500 cars in a set, and it would have been tough to catch the cab-on-both-ends 300s and 400s leading a train. TRT (Teito Rapid Transit, a.k.a. Eidan Subway, now Tokyo Metro) tended to stick older-than-500 class cars in the middle and preferred having single-ended Class 500 cab cars on the ends.

#301 is preserved at the Subway Musueum in Kasai (eastern Tokyo, see photo).

>     Photo 3:  Not the usual view.  A long
> outer suburban dmu rake is on the Sobu line, a not
> uncommon sight then.

At least 2 Class 400s are still preserved, and the Sotobo or Uchibo Line Express DMU you caught might take you close to one of the locations on the Boso Peninsula.
 

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Steinzeit2 Wrote:
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> I thought going a little farther west produced
> some scenic scenes, but the main attraction for me
> in this area was the track layout, going from the
> flying junction at O'mizu that got the tracks
> arranged by direction, and then the flyover (
> Photo 6 ) to get them into a fast / slow pairing.

There are similar flyover + flying junction pairs at various locations in Japan. The nearest one to the west of Ochanomizu is the Sobu vs. Yamanote Lines between Yoyogi and Shinjuku. Another one out in the suburbs is the Tokaido vs. Yokosuka Lines between Totsuka and Ofuna.

It's not just about the fast/slow pairing. It's about passenger convenience, namely same platform transfer to different lines. At Ochanomizu, eastbound travellers can "switch" between Sobu and Chuo Lines on the same platform without going up/down stairs (escalators and elevators now). Take the Chuo Line Rapid to bypass the stops, then instead of going to Tokyo, transfer to Sobu Line and go toward Chiba, for example.

This sort of infrastructure investment allows operational flexibility where the railroad can focus on improving passenger speed (not just train speed). Timed transfers at these types of stations can be done in less than a minute. No one commented on my post 2 years ago of a video of 2 trains arriving perfectly together. That wasn't just for show - engineers in Japan are trained to do this, so precision timed transfers can be done:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,5623335

> I am going from memory here, but as I recall in
> 1971 'regular' Chuo line services shared the slow
> lines and its station stops with Sobu trains,
> while the Chuo Rapid Service used the fast
> lines;  these latter were distinguished by the
> placards on the ends as seen in these photos.

The "Special Rapid" placard is what you documented. Non-placarded Chuo Line trains are Rapids, skipping stops between Ochanomizu and Nakano* going west. Sobu Line trains cover all the stops in between. Technically, Sobu Line ends at Ochanomizu, and becomes "Sobu-Chuo Line" as the 4 track main heads west to Mitaka.

Special Rapid trains extend their limited stop scheduling even farther west to Tachikawa. They make timed transfers (stop, transfer, then overtake) with the Rapid trains at Mitaka and Kokubunji now. In 1971, the timed transfers may have taken place at Nakano also, seeing how the Nakano tracks/platforms are arranged.

In the early morning hours (4-6 am) and late evenings (approaching and slightly past midnight), the red Chuo Line trains used to run as "Sobu-Chuo Line" while the yellow Sobu Line trains were tucked inside yards. So those were the times red Chuo Line trains became "regular" non-Rapid trains and ran on the slower pair of tracks. I believe this was already in practice in 1971, and it continued until the E233 era (mid-2000s).

I remember riding red Class 201 Chuo Line trains labeled as "Kakueki Teisha (local)" while doing early morning jet-lagged travel, and also near midnight after partying with friends. Rapid trains did not run at those hours. This was in the mid-to-late 1990s, and I saw some Japan railfan posts claiming similar practices in the Class 101/103 eras, 1970s, and 1980s.

*On weekends, Rapid trains extend their limited stops scheduling past Nakano to Mitaka - hope to elaborate on a future post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/25 20:23 by cchan006.

Steinzeit2 Wrote:
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> Photo 7:  This is two stations west:  I am
> standing at the east end of the Iidabashi Station
> platform looking east, with a dmu rake on the
> through tracks, and a DD13 switching the small
> yard and industrial sidings that have since
> completely disappeared.

That yard used to be a freight terminal during Japan's "loose car" era. With containerization, its use kept dwindling in the mid-1980s, and it ceased to become a yard/freight terminal in 1999. MOW equipment is stored at this location now.

Unfortunately, JR East migrated the Iidabashi platform much further west recently (5 years ago) to make it "less curvy" and closer to the newer subway stations. I don't know if your angle is still possible today - I won't know until I visit next time.

Thank you very much for another time machine post! Your catch of the Kiha 26 DMU running as Express "Sotobo" is another historic treasure! 

For another change of pace, here are a couple of shots I took at Ochanomizu in 2002 when both the Marunouchi line and the Chuo Rapid line had different rolling stock.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/25 21:35 by dwatry.

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dwatry Wrote:
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> For another change of pace, here are a couple of
> shots I took at Ochanomizu in 2002 when both the
> Marunouchi line and the Chuo Rapid line had
> different rolling stock.

Thanks for the look back. Brings back memories of when I visited Japan in the late 1990s, Chuo Line Class 201s, and Marunouchi Line Class 02s.

I got lucky catching a Class 02, 2 months before all were withdrawn from service last year. I followed my own advice by spotting a railfan with an expensive lens, so I waited around, and a Class 02 showed up minutes later- for a future report.

cchan006 Wrote:
... I followed my own advice by spotting a railfan with
> an expensive lens, ...

I get lens envy every time I see Japanese amateur photographers. In the many public gardens, there are lots of really great lenses, often much larger than the flower being photographed. It's often men of retirement age. 14th trip to Japan coming up in a month!

symph1 Wrote:
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> I get lens envy every time I see Japanese amateur
> photographers. In the many public gardens, there
> are lots of really great lenses, often much larger
> than the flower being photographed. It's often men
> of retirement age. 14th trip to Japan coming up in
> a month!

Hope your next visit wiil be lots of fun!

(Very expensive lens railfan on a Sobu Line platform.)

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