東葉高速線

Overview

The Toyo Rapid Line (TR) runs 16.2 km east from Nishi-Funabashi across Funabashi into Yachiyo, ending at Toyo-Katsutadai beside Keisei's Katsutadai: nine stations, every train stopping at every one. Barely any of it is at ground level — more than a third runs in tunnel and nearly all the rest on viaduct — and almost every train runs through at Nishi-Funabashi onto the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line, some continuing over JR's Chuo local line to Mitaka.

It is the Tozai Line's extension in all but ownership. The 1972 transport council plan drew subway Line 5 on past Nishi-Funabashi to Katsutadai, and in 1974 the Teito Rapid Transit Authority decided to build it as its own "Katsutadai Line". Keisei, whose Main Line it parallels, fought it as a threat to its survival, and the ministry settled on a company owned by Chiba Prefecture, Funabashi, Yachiyo, the railways and the banks. Work began in 1985, and buying the land dragged on for years; the opening slipped from 1991 to 1993 to 1995 and finally came on 27 April 1996, with trains running through onto the Tozai Line from the first day. The plan had six stations beyond Nishi-Funabashi. Funabashi-Nichidaimae and Murakami were added at local request, and a tenth, paid for by the city of Funabashi, is now being built between Higashi-Kaijin and Hasama.

Along the route

Nishi-Funabashi is a big junction — JR's Chuo-Sobu local, Musashino and Keiyo lines, and the Tozai Line — and Toyo Rapid trains use the Tozai Line's ground-level platforms beside JR's Sobu tracks. Leaving, they drop at 38 per mille, a gradient that needed the ministry's special approval, into the Kaijin tunnel, the longest on the line at about 2.7 km, with Higashi-Kaijin inside it. Hasama is up on a viaduct, with a siding between its tracks and room laid out for four, so that a faster train could one day overtake there; for now none does. The station takes its name from the district around it, 飯山満町, and is counted among the hardest station names in Chiba to read.

Kita-Narashino, back underground, is the change for Keisei's Matsudo Line — the Shin-Keisei Line until April 2025 — and hosted the line's opening ceremony in 1996. Funabashi-Nichidaimae serves Nihon University's Funabashi campus. The university asked for the station, paid most of its cost, and designed it: the building won a railway architecture award and is one of the Kanto Station 100. Yachiyo-Midorigaoka, planned as Nishi-Yachiyo, has four tracks, the line's depot, and rose photographs on its walls — it is the nearest station to the Keisei Rose Garden. Yachiyo-Chuo, planned as plain Yachiyo, is the station for Yachiyo's city hall, and just past it the line crosses the Shinkawa on its longest bridge. Murakami was added in 1990 at residents' request, with a local promotion league footing the bill, and after it the line goes underground one last time into Toyo-Katsutadai, linked to Keisei's Katsutadai by an underground passage since 1997.

Why play it

Nine stops and 122 keystrokes, and the hardest name comes third out of Nishi-Funabashi. 飯山満 is はさま, nothing like the いいやま… its characters suggest, and at six keystrokes it is also the shortest name on the line, so there is no time to think. If your IME doesn't know はさま, Kanji mode takes the name piece by piece — commit 飯, 山 and 満 separately and it still counts. 東海神 is ひがしかいじん, not うみがみ, and its final ん needs a second n. 船橋日大前 is the longest, 20 keystrokes: 日大 is にちだい, Nihon University's short name, so it is "funabashinichidaimae" — the line's second "funabashi", after 西船橋.

Then 八千代 twice in a row, and "yachiyo" twice. 八千代緑が丘 writes its が in hiragana, and an IME that offers 緑ヶ丘 — a common spelling elsewhere — costs you a miss, because the game folds ヶ into ケ, never into が. 八千代中央 hides two long vowels in ちゅうおう. And the eastern terminus undoes the board: Toyo-Katsutadai drops both long vowels of 東葉, but the kana is とうよう, so it is "touyoukatsutadai", sixteen keys.