Chuo Line Tokyo terminal- 2 minute headways

[bikkuri bahn]

Perhaps the busiest 2 track 1 platform setup in Japan, certainly an efficient use of the available space:

 

Apples to oranges, I know, but frankly makes Caltrain's 4th and King terminal operations look like a total waste of space and third world in efficiency, bless their hearts.

*I came across this video while searching for some material for the previous dango driving post which miyakoji started.

[miyakoji]

I just saw this on the main page, I thought, dammit, that looks familiar.  I saw it too when I googled 過密ダイヤ, which you wrote in the dango joutai thread .  One thing that comes to mind for me is how the Chuo Line platform at Tokyo seems to be up there on stilts.  It's above the level of the Shinkansen platform isn't it?  Any idea how old that arrangement is?  It looks reasonable new.  Did the line terminate at Kanda previously?

[westfalen]

I think they raised the Chuo line tracks to make room for more Shinkansen platforms when the Shinkansen connection from Ueno opened. They raised the Chuo line and moved everything else over to make space.

 

This cab ride video I shot in 1990 ends up at the old ground level platforms.

[clem24]

Thanks for sharing! So is switching done manually by someone, somewhere, or is it done automatically? Never really thought about this...

 

Here's my story about the Chuo line: on our first trip, we took the Chuo line to Mitaka to visit the Ghibli Museum. We bought a whole ton of souvenirs. On the way back, the train was a little busy, so we threw the souvenir bag onto the overhead racks. When we got off at Shinjuku, my attention was so focused on the Chuo liner parked at the platform over that I completely didn't realize the bag was still on the train! There was probably about $300+ worth of stuff in there. Being that I knew no one would take it, I told my wife that we should hop on the next train and take it to Tokyo and hope that our train is on the opposite side of the platform.

 

We got to Tokyo, and as I had hoped, there was a train waiting. I had hoped that while at Shinjuku, no other train had passed (which I didn't think). So we ran to the opposite train just as it was closing it's doors. Walked down a couple cars and lo and behold, there was our bag! I would've felt terrible if I had lost it (not likely being in Japan but would've been a HUGE pain to try to claim it through lost and found.

 

Anyway just thought I'd share as seeing the frequency of the trains makes me realize how lucky we were!

[bikkuri bahn]

Good story.  If you didn't want to go to Tokyo Station, if you told station staff at Shinjuku, they would likely have called ahead, and have the bag brought back on the next outbound (down) service.