空港線

Overview

The Keikyu Airport Line (KK) runs 6.5 km from Keikyu Kamata to Haneda Airport Terminal 1·2 in 7 stations, all in Tokyo's Ota ward. Keikyu numbers its whole network in one sequence from Shinagawa, so the line picks up at KK12 straight after Kamata's KK11. Most of its trains do not end at Kamata but run on along the Main Line, toward Shinagawa and the Toei Asakusa Line or toward Yokohama.

The line is older than the airport it serves. It opened on 28 June 1902 as the Anamori Line, carrying worshippers to Anamori Inari Shrine, which stood on land now inside Haneda Airport. After the war the Allied occupation requisitioned the neighbouring airfield to enlarge it, the shrine and its neighbourhood were cleared, and the line was cut back to the west bank of the Ebitori River. From 1956 until the early 1990s the station called Haneda Airport sat on that bank, across the water from the airport and far from any terminal. The line became the Airport Line in 1963, crossed back onto the airport island in 1993 and reached the terminals on 18 November 1998. A third airport station opened on 21 October 2010, and on 14 March 2020 the two took today's names, Terminal 3 and Terminal 1·2.

Along the route

The Airport Line leaves the elevated Keikyu Kamata on a tight curve over Route 15, the Daiichi Keihin. Until that section was raised in 2012, Hakone Ekiden runners crossed the line at a level crossing on that road, and every 3 January Keikyu reworked its service around them.

Kojiya is elevated. The track then drops underground for Otorii, beneath the junction of the Sangyo Road and Kanpachi-dori, and returns to the surface at Anamori-inari. Both names are left over from the pilgrim railway — an otorii is a great torii — and the shrine was re-established near Anamori-inari station after the eviction.

Beyond it the line goes under the Ebitori River to Tenkubashi, named after a footbridge over the river whose name was chosen by public appeal to local residents. Bridge and station both opened on 1 April 1993, the station as Haneda; it took the bridge's name in 1998. Nearby stands the shrine's old great torii, which stood in the old airport terminal's car park until it was moved here in 1999. Tenkubashi is the transfer both Keikyu and the Tokyo Monorail list, with a gate between the two stations.

The two railways then run into the airport side by side. Haneda Airport Terminal 3 lies beneath Terminal 3, with the monorail's station of the same name in the same building. There they part: the monorail swings south through Shin-seibijo, while Keikyu runs straight, with no station in between, to its terminus underground between Terminals 1 and 2.

Why play it

Seven names and 110 keystrokes, and the last two stations take 60 of them. 羽田空港第3ターミナル is はねだくうこうだいさんたーみなる, 27 keystrokes; 羽田空港第1・第2ターミナル is 33. The long mark in ターミナル is typed with the hyphen key, and the numbers are read out — だいさん, then だいいち and だいに back to back, with a double i in the middle of daiichi. In Kanji mode both stations want the digits, so an IME's 第三 or 第一 will not count, and the middle dot in 第1・第2 has to be typed too.

The first five names are short and still catch people out, because the signs drop long vowels the keyboard needs. Keikyu Kamata is keikyuukamata. Kojiya is こうじや, koujiya, and 糀 is a character made in Japan for kōji, the rice mould. Otorii is おおとりい: o twice, then i twice, seven keys for five kana. 穴守稲荷 runs two i's together where the words join, anamoriinari, and 天空橋 voices its 橋 into ばし. It is a short line, but barely a name on it can be typed exactly as it is signed.