埼玉高速鉄道線

Overview

The Saitama Railway Line (SR) runs 14.6 km north from Akabane-iwabuchi, the Tokyo Metro Namboku Line's terminus in Tokyo's Kita ward, under the Arakawa and up through Kawaguchi to Urawa-misono on the eastern edge of Saitama city. It has 8 stations, and every one between the two ends is in Kawaguchi. It is underground all the way except for Urawa-misono and the depot beyond it. The company's own signs call it the 埼玉スタジアム線, Saitama Stadium Line, after the stadium a walk from the terminus; the nickname was picked by public vote and has been used since November 2015, after an earlier one from 2002 never caught on.

On planners' maps it is the Saitama half of Tokyo Line 7, whose Tokyo half opened as the Namboku Line. A 1972 transport council report first marked out an extension into Saitama, and a 1985 report fixed the route through Hatogaya and Higashi-kawaguchi. Saitama Prefecture, the three cities along the route and the subway authority set up a company to build it in 1992, and the whole line opened on 28 March 2001. Station names were settled in 1999, when the working names 鳩ヶ谷中央, 川口戸塚 and 浦和大門 became 鳩ヶ谷, 戸塚安行 and 浦和美園. Every train runs through onto the Namboku Line, a separate line in the game, and from the first day the service carried on over the Tokyu Meguro Line too. Its numbers continue the Namboku Line's count, so it starts at SR19.

Along the route

Akabane-iwabuchi is one station shared by both companies and run by Tokyo Metro, named after Akabane and the old Iwabuchi-machi. It lies almost directly beneath the stop of the Toden tram that ran up here until 1972. JR's Akabane station is under ten minutes' walk away, but Saitama Railway lists it only as somewhere an exit leads, not as a transfer, and the game keeps the two apart. North of the platforms the line drops at 35 per mille and passes under the Arakawa just west of the Shin-Arakawa bridge. It goes beneath the river instead of bridging it, and flood doors at Akabane-iwabuchi and Kawaguchi-motogo can seal the tunnel off. Under the tracks, for 12 km from near Kawaguchi-motogo, runs a pipe that feeds Arakawa water into the Ayase, the Shiba and two other rivers to freshen them.

From Kawaguchi-motogo, near Kawaguchi's city hall, the line heads up the corridor of Route 122, the Iwatsuki Kaido, which was once the Nikko Onari road, the way the shoguns went on pilgrimage to Nikko. Hatogaya's platforms lie under the road itself, and east of it is the old town of the Hatogaya post station, with buildings from the Meiji and Taisho eras still standing. Hatogaya was a city of its own with no railway at all until this line opened, and it merged into Kawaguchi in 2011.

Tozuka-angyo is named after two districts, Tozuka and Angyo, and Angyo has long been known for its tree and garden-plant nurseries. Higashi-kawaguchi is the one interchange along the way, with the JR Musashino Line. Then the line rises into the open at Urawa-misono, its only station above ground, with a spare platform that opens on match days at Saitama Stadium 2002, a 2002 World Cup venue about fifteen minutes' walk away. Every station except Akabane-iwabuchi has its own colour, repeated on its platform doors, and together they run up the line as a rainbow, from purple at Kawaguchi-motogo to red at Urawa-misono.

Why play it

Eight stations and 100 keystrokes, and the signs keep leaving letters out. The start is long: あかばねいわぶち, 15 keystrokes, then 川口元郷, where Kawaguchi-motogo on the sign is かわぐちもとごう in kana, so you type motogou. The line's two longest names, 川口元郷 and 東川口 at 16 keystrokes each, are the two with Kawaguchi in them.

In the middle, 南鳩ヶ谷 is followed straight away by 鳩ヶ谷, so you type hatogaya twice in a row. The ヶ is read が in both. In Kanji mode a ヶ or a full-size ケ is accepted. 新井宿 is あらいじゅく, with 新井 as あらい and a voiced じゅく for 宿.

Then comes 戸塚安行, the name to learn before you start. This 戸塚 is とづか, with a づ, not the とつか of Totsuka on the Tokaido Line, so you can type tozuka, as the sign spells it, or toduka, as an IME wants. 安行 is あんぎょう, 行 read ぎょう as in Odakyu's 善行, and the sign's Angyo drops the long vowel you have to type: tozukaangyou. The line ends gently at 浦和美園, うらわみその, which has no long vowel at all.