Overview
The Sotetsu Shin-yokohama Line (SO) runs 6.3 km from Nishiya on the Sotetsu Main Line through Hazawa yokohama-kokudai to Shin-yokohama, three stations in all, nearly all of it in tunnel and without a single level crossing. It is the line that finally took Sotetsu trains into Tokyo: until 2019, Sotetsu was the only major private railway in the Tokyo area whose trains never crossed into the capital.
It opened in two halves. The Sotetsu–JR link (相鉄・JR直通線) came first, on 30 November 2019: 2.1 km to Hazawa yokohama-kokudai, where trains turn off onto JR's Tokaido freight line and run on to Shinjuku. It was Japan's first new railway line of the Reiwa era, and Sotetsu's first new line in some 43 years. The Sotetsu–Tokyu link (相鉄・東急直通線) added the 4.2 km to Shin-yokohama on 18 March 2023, the same day the Tokyu Shin-yokohama Line opened beyond it. The official name keeps "Sotetsu" to tell it apart from Tokyu's line of the same name.
Along the route
Nishiya opened in 1926, and the outer two of its four platform tracks now lead to the new line. Leaving it, the tracks drop away into the 1.7 km Nishiya Tunnel, as deep as 46 m below the surface, before rising again to Hazawa yokohama-kokudai.
That station sits in a deep cutting inside the grounds of the Yokohama-Hazawa freight terminal. Just east of it the line forks: one pair of tracks climbs at 33 ‰ onto the Tokaido freight line, and Sotetsu and JR crews change over at this station. It was planned as plain 羽沢 and named in 2017, at the city's request, for the Hazawa district and for Yokohama National University, whose campus is up the hill. 国大 is short for 横浜国立大学.
The other pair of tracks enters the 3.7 km Hazawa Tunnel and falls at 34 ‰ for nearly 1.9 km, passing beneath the embankment of the Tokaido Shinkansen before climbing to Shin-yokohama. The whole line was built to the larger clearances of JR's trains, so a JR train can be turned back at Shin-yokohama if the JR side is disrupted.
Why play it
Three names and 41 keystrokes make this one of the shortest runs you can pick, but the three are far from even. 西谷 is にしや, not にしたに: nishiya, seven keys, and a trap for anyone who knows 谷 as たに. Then 羽沢横浜国大, はざわよこはまこくだい, takes 21 keystrokes on its own, more than half the run, with the whole of yokohama tucked inside it. 新横浜 comes straight after with yokohama again, and its ん, coming before よ, takes two n's: shinnyokohama. Sotetsu's English sign writes the long one as "Hazawa yokohama-kokudai", with a space and a hyphen, but romaji input follows the kana, so you type neither.
In Kanji mode, if your IME won't produce 羽沢横浜国大 in one piece, convert 羽沢, 横浜 and 国大 separately and commit them in order, since the board matches a name built up that way. If the IME offers the old form 羽澤, that is accepted as 沢 too.
Line data
Everything below is derived from the station data the game runs on, so it always matches what you actually type on the 相鉄新横浜線 — all 3 stops of it.
- Operator
- Sagami Railway
- Line symbol
- SO
- Stations
- 3
- Shape
- Terminal to terminal
- Termini
- 西谷 — 新横浜
How much typing is this?
Typing every station name on this line takes 41 keystrokes, an average of 13.7 per station. The longest name is 羽沢横浜国大 (hazawa-yokohama-kokudai) at 21 keystrokes; the shortest is 西谷 (nishiya) at 7. Those counts come from running each name's kana through the game's own romaji engine, so they are what your fingers actually do — not the length of the printed spelling.
Along the way: 0 names contain a small っ, which doubles the next consonant; 0 contain a small ゃ, ゅ or ょ, where the engine accepts both the Hepburn and Kunrei spellings (sha or sya, shu or syu); and 0 end in ん, whose trailing n folds into whatever comes next rather than standing alone.
Where you can change trains
2 of the 3 stations on this line connect to another line in the game. Follow any symbol to that line's guide.
Every station on the line
All 3 stations in order, with the official station number, the name in kanji, the kana the typing is derived from, and its Hepburn romaji.
| # | No. | Station | Kana | Romaji |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SO08 | 西谷 | にしや | nishiya |
| 2 | SO51 | 羽沢横浜国大 | はざわよこはまこくだい | hazawa-yokohama-kokudai |
| 3 | SO52 | 新横浜 | しんよこはま | shin-yokohama |