多摩線

Overview

The Odakyu Tama Line (OT) runs 10.6 km from Shin-yurigaoka to Karakida in 8 stations. It is Odakyu's youngest line, built for Tama New Town: it curves off the Odawara Line at Shin-yurigaoka, crosses the hills of Kawasaki's Asao ward, tunnels into Tokyo and runs beside the Keio Sagamihara Line through the middle of the new town, then parts from it for its depot terminus at Karakida. It has no level crossings anywhere. Its own numbers run from OT01 Satsukidai to OT07 Karakida, while Shin-yurigaoka keeps the Odawara Line's OH23.

Odakyu first meant to branch off at Kitami, much nearer Tokyo, and head west past Yomiuri-land. That route tangled with Keio's in the hills and met opposition in the towns it would have cut through, so Odakyu moved the junction to a new station on a straightened stretch of the Odawara Line, named Shin-yurigaoka, "new Yurigaoka", after the housing estate next door. The line opened to Odakyu Nagayama on 1 June 1974, four months ahead of Keio, and reached Odakyu Tama Center on 23 April 1975 and Karakida on 27 March 1990.

For years it was a quiet shuttle. The Odawara Line had no room for more trains, so most services turned back at Shin-yurigaoka while Keio ran straight through to Shinjuku. Odakyu's longer game was the suburbs: from 1971 it organised land readjustment with local landowners along the line, the method Tokyu had used for its garden city, and the population slowly followed. Through trains onto the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line first ran in December 2000; the 2018 timetable turned almost all of them towards Shinjuku instead, and they came back in March 2025.

Along the route

The Tama Line leaves Shin-yurigaoka on a viaduct, bending right on its tightest curve, 555 m in radius, then crosses the Asao River and drops into a cutting at Satsukidai. The name was made up: the local place name, 五力田 (Gorikida), was thought clumsy, so the planners took its 五, added the 台 of a nearby hamlet, and read 五月 as satsuki, the old name for the fifth month, hoping for a town as bright as May. Kurihira, on an embankment, is a composite too: the station building stood in Kuriki and the platforms in Katahira, so it took 栗 from one and 平 from the other.

After Kurokawa the line crosses the Tsurukawa Kaido and tunnels through to Haruhino, Odakyu's newest station, opened on 11 December 2004 together with the housing area it is named after. Then the Keio line appears to the north, and after the Suwa tunnel the two railways run side by side into Tokyo's Tama city. Odakyu Nagayama and Odakyu Tama Center sit next to their Keio twins, and at Tama Center the Tama Monorail passes overhead.

The Odakyu line then bears away alone, past a golf course, to Karakida. When the new town's incineration plant was sited there in 1969, a railway and a station were among the conditions local residents wrote into the agreement. Beyond the terminus lies the depot, dug about 25 m into the hillside, its tracks laid so that the line could one day go further south-west.

Why play it

Eight stations and 88 keystrokes, and almost every name has a catch, starting with the first. 新百合ヶ丘 is written with ヶ and read が, and its ん sits in front of ゆ, where a single n is not enough: "shinyu" would be しにゅ, so the game refuses the y, and you need shinnyurigaoka. In Kanji mode, ヶ and a full-size ケ are both accepted.

Then the made-up names. 五月台 is さつきだい, not ごがつだい. 栗平 is くりひら, with 平 as ひら rather than だいら or へい. はるひ野 keeps its first three characters in hiragana, so in Kanji mode leave はるひ alone and convert only 野, whatever the IME suggests. 唐木田 is からきだ, 唐 as in からあげ.

The two Odakyu stations are the long ones. The sign says Odakyu, but the kana is おだきゅう, so you type odakyuu with both u's. 小田急多摩センター, 17 keystrokes, is the longest name on the line, and its long bar is typed with the hyphen key. If you have played the Keio Sagamihara Line, these are the same two places under the other company's name: keiou there, odakyuu here.