Keikyu, one of the typical urban
railways, serves the Yokohama and Yokosuka area from Tokyo with
a complicated but interesting operation pattern.
General:
Keikyu (short for Keihin Kyuko Dentetsu - Keihin Express Electric
Railway) is one of the 15 big private railways of Japan, and operates
from Tokyo southwards via Yokohama to the Miura- peninsula. I
consider Keikyu to be "my" railway, as it is the railway
that I have used most often in Japan. I lived near Kami-Ooka station
in southern Yokohama for three months in 1989 and for another
month in 1991, using the Keikyu every morning to commute to central
Tokyo, changing to JR at Keikyu's terminus at Shinagawa. During
my other visits to Japan I traveled on the Keikyu at least once
to see all the old places again and also to realize all the changes
that have taken place since. In many aspects the Keikyu is similar
to the other private railways around Tokyo, as it has one main
line and several branch lines, runs parallel to JR lines, ends
at the Yamanote-line and has through- running with a subway line.
Although being one of the biggest railways in Japan, Keikyu is
not well known. The reason for this is mainly that it starts in
Shinagawa, the southernmost point of JR's Yamanote-line; a place
rather far away from the big railway hubs such as Ikebukuro, Shinjuku,
Shibuya or Ueno. But there are some unique features of the Keikyu;
there are 12-car-trains, the longest trains of all private railways
in Japan and the top speed of 120 km/h, which is only surpassed
by one other private railway, the Kintetsu (the table in Bullet-in
no. 16, page 16, does not list Keikyu as they started to run 120
km/h from 1995 only). Also, Keikyu has a very interesting, and
slightly complicated, system of slow and fast trains overtaking
each other. Keikyu has a route length of only 84 kilometers, but
a total of 1.2 million passengers travel on its trains every day;
these are more passengers than Meitetsu has on its 539 km of track,
making Keikyu the 11th biggest railway in Japan in terms of passengers
carried (except subways). Keikyu is of course not only a railway,
but a group of several companies with the railway as its center.
Similar to Tokyu (described in Bullet-in no. 14) but smaller,
Keikyu has department stores near, or directly at, their stations.
It also develops the land around their lines, and operates buses
in this area.
History:
The first part of today's Keikyu network opened for traffic on
the 21st January 1899, the section between Rokugobashi and Daishi
(today Kawasaki-Daishi). Rokugobashi station does not exist anymore,
it was near the Rokugo-bridge, between the today's stations Minato-machi
and Keikyu- Kawasaki. This first line is now the northern part
of the Keikyu Daishi-line in Kawasaki city. Daishi is the name
of a temple, and was probably built for the people making a pilgrimage
to the temple. The company was called Daishi Denki Tetsudo (Daishi
Electric Railway), and it was the third electric railway in Japan
after Kyoto (1895) and Nagoya (1898); thus there was an electric
railway in Kawasaki while there were only steam locomotives and
horse trams in the capital, Tokyo, only a few miles away. Traffic
was not very heavy in the beginning, as the company had only 5
cars and the line (single track) was 2 km long. However, it was
Japan's first railway using the European standard gauge, 1435
mm. Although it was considered to be a very expensive railway,
costing 5 Sen for a single trip, the line got the divine favor
of the Priest Daishi, and the business developed very well. Note
that 100 Sen made 1 Yen, and so 5 Sen would today be the equivalent
to about 0.03 Pence.
Only three months after opening, the company was renamed Keihin
Denki Tetsudo (Keihin Electric Railway), as they had the plan
to built a network between Tokyo (here shortened to kei) and Yokohama
(hin). So the line was extended from Rokugobashi to Omori (7.2
km) in 1901, and one year later for one more kilometer to Kawasaki.
This station is now called Keikyu-Kawasaki, to distinguish it
from JR's Kawasaki station. Also in 1902 a 3.6 km long branch
line was opened between Kamata (again today called Keikyu-Kamata)
and Anamori, today a part of the Kuko- (Airport-)line. As the
company had the plan of a joint operation with the trams in Tokyo
and Yokohama, they decided to regauge the whole line to 1372 mm,
which was done in 1904. In the same year, the line was extended
4.3 km northwards from Omori-Kaigan to Kita-Shinagawa, and one
year later it was extended 9.9 km southwards from Kawasaki to
Kanagawa. Kanagawa is the name of the prefecture, in which Kawasaki
and Yokohama are, but it is also a ward in Yokohama, very close
to the center. So in 1905 Keihin Electric Railway started through
traffic between Shinagawa, in the south of Tokyo, to Kanagawa,
about 1 km north of Yokohama station. The National Railways, which
were operating trains between Shimbashi and Yokohama (Japan's
first railway, opened in 1872), were of course opposed to this
parallel line; and so three days later they introduced an express
service making two return journeys per day, taking only 27 minutes.
Keihin Railway's trains were rather tram-like with many stops
in between, taking 55 minutes.
During the next 25 years not much happened; then in 1930 Keihin
built a small extension southwards and finally reached Yokohama
station. In the same year a new 36 km long railway, the Shonan
Denki Tetsudo (Shonan Electric Railway), opened between Koganecho
(3.3 km south of Yokohama) and Uraga, with a branch line from
Kanazawa-Hakkei to Zushi. This meant that only 3 km were missing
between the two railways, so in 1931 Keihin extended its line
from Yokohama to Hinodecho, and Shonan from Koganecho to Hinodecho,
so that a through service could start. However, two problems arose:
the Shonan Railway was a real railway with 1435 mm gauge and a
voltage of 1500 VDC, while Keihin was a tram with 1372 mm gauge
and 600 V dc. So Keihin was regauged again to 1435 mm, the through-running
with Tokyo's municipal tram, that had started in 1925, was no
more. Now the Keihin trains ran through to Uraga, the fist dual
voltage trains being used for this.
In 1941, Shonan Railway and Keihin Railway merged, and one year
later they became part of the big wartime merger with Tokyu, Odakyu
and later Keio, being the Shinagawa Operating Office of this big
railway. During the war the line was extended further southwards
from Horinouchi to Kurihama, and all the old tram-lines were classified
as a railway, thus higher speeds could be achieved. After the
war, the lines had to be partly rebuilt, and during this time
the voltage on the former tram- lines was increased to 1500 VDC.
Keihin became independent from Tokyu in 1948 and was renamed Keihin
Express Dentetsu (Keihin Express Electric Railway). More extensions
southwards were opened in 1963 (2.7 km from Keikyu-Kurihama to
Nobi), in 1966 (4 km from Nobi to Miura- Kaigan and in 1975 (2.2
km from Miura-Kaigan to Misakiguchi, which is still the southern
terminus). A further extension, 2.1 km south to "Abura-Tsubo"
is being planned.
There have been some changes in the northern part of the Keikyu-network
as well: The Daishi-Line was extended in 1944 and 1945 for 5.2
km, and 2 km of this extension was given to the municipal trams
of Kawasaki in 1952. However, 1.2 km closed in 1970, and so the
2 km between Kawasaki-Daishi and Kojima- Shinden is the only part
remaining today as a part of this wartime extension. The airport-line
was extended in 1956 and again in 1993 to reach the new terminus
of Tokyo's Haneda Airport. Finally, in 1968, a small but very
important link of 1.2 km length was opened between Shinagawa and
Sengakuji (underground), to connect the Keikyu with Toei's (Tokyo
Municipal Subway) Asakusa underground line.
Keikyu Today:
Today, Keikyu has five lines: The main line from Sengakuji
to Uraga (56.7 km), the Airport-line (Kuko-line) from Keikyu-Kamata
to Haneda (airport, 3.3 km), the Daishi-line from Keikyu-Kawasaki
to Kojima-Shinden (4.5 km), the Zushi-line from Kanazawa-Hakkei
to Shin-Zushi (5.9 km) and the Kurihama-line from Horinouchi to
Misakiguchi (13.4 km), making a total of 83.8 km.
Keikyu's Service Pattern:
Keikyu's slowest trains are called Regular (Futsu in Japanese),
which comprise of 4 or 6 cars, stopping at every station. Faster
is the Express (Kyuko in Japanese), which is distinguished by
blue on the destination table. But even the Express have to wait
for faster trains sometimes; the Limited Express (red colour,
Tokkyu in Japanese) are quite fast, stopping only at big stations,
and the Rapid-limited-express (green, Kaisoku-Tokkyu in Japanese)
stops only at very few main stations. The normal service pattern
during the daytime is one Rapid-limited-express, an 8-car-train,
beween Shinagawa and Keikyu- Kurihama every twenty minutes, and
a Limited express, also an 8-car-train, every twenty minutes in
between, so making a ten-minute-service between those two stations.
The Limited Express all start in Misakiguchi and go through to
the Asakusa Subway, and then on to the Keisei Railway as far as
Oshiage, Aoto, Keisei-Takasago or even further over the Hokuso
Railway to Chiba New Town Chuo. The Express, 6- or 8-car-trains,
have two services: the first is from Shin-Zushi to Kanagawa-Shimmachi,
and the second is from Haneda into the Asakusa subway, the same
direction as the Limited Express. Local Regular trains normally
go from Uraga to Shinagawa, and on the Daishi-line, there are
also only local trains. Every train runs every ten or twenty minutes
with other trains between, thus every station is served at least
once every ten minutes. The only exception is the section south
of Keikyu-Kurihama, where there is only one Limited Express every
twenty minutes.
This changes slightly during the rush hour, when far more trains
run; the trains are also longer with the Commuter-rapid-limited-express
having 12 cars, making it the longest train of all private railways
in Japan. The Commuter-rapid-limited-express (Tsukin-Kaisoku-Tokkyu
in Japanese) is very similar to the Rapid-limited-express, except
that it is called "Commuter" It uses violet/mauve colour
for the destination tables, only runs during the rush hour (and
only "up" to Tokyo) and also stops at Keikyu-Kamata.
One new service was introduced a few years ago, the "Keikyu-Wing".
This train runs every twenty minutes between 18.45 h and 21.05
h between Shinagawa and Kurihama or Misakiguchi. It does not stop
until Kami-Ooka, and from there it uses the service-pattern of
the Rapid-Limited express. You can only enter the "Wing",
if you have a ticket for your seat reservation; this is 200 Yen
extra to your normal ticket. You can buy your reservation between
one week and one day before departure at any Keikyu-station, and
on the day of departure only at ticket-machines at Shinagawa station.
The Wing is not faster than the other trains, but it is much more
comfortable as you have your seat reserved.
The through-service with Tokyo Municipal Subway's Asakusa line
is not as important to Keikyu as it is for other companies. Tokyo
Municipal Subway is quite expensive, and many people prefer to
change to JR at Shinagawa instead of going on into the subway
without having to change trains. But it is very interesting to
see not only subway rains, but also Keisei- and Hokuso-trains
on Keikyu's tracks. The Asakusa subway line has probably the most
interesting variety of liveries of all Tokyo subways.
Photos:
