Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/rmtransit-the-worlds-most-important-rail-line
Tokyo’s Yamanote Line is a circular rail line that boasts more ridership than some entire systems in cities with good transit, and it just might be the most important rail line in the world.
Get your Japan Rail Pass for unlimited travel all across Japan here: https://click.jrpass.com/SH7M
Special thanks to JR Urbane Network & Shin Oblander for providing footage used in this video!
As always, leave a comment down below if you have ideas for our future videos. Like, subscribe, and hit the bell icon so you won’t miss my next video!
=PATREON=
If you’d like to help me make more videos & get exclusive behind the scenes access and early video releases, consider supporting my Patreon! Every dollar goes towards helping my channel grow & reach more people.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/rmtransit
=ATTRIBUTION=
Epidemic Sound (Affiliate Link): https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/sgptna/
Nexa from Fontfabric.com
Map Data © OpenStreetMap contributors: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
=COMMUNITY DISCORD SERVER=
Discord Server: https://discord.gg/jfz3fqT
(Not officially affiliated with the channel)
=MY SOCIAL MEDIA=
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RM_Transit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rm_transit/
Website: https://reecemartin.ca
Substack: https://reecemartin.substack.com
=ABOUT ME=
Ever wondered why your city’s transit just doesn’t seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
41 Comments
If you enjoy this video, make sure to share it with someone who doesn’t know about the wonders of Japanese railways!
By the way, while riding the Yamanote Line, I saw this notice that service between Ikebukuro and Shibuya will be shut down on January 7 (Saturday) to 8 (Sunday).
I work at an advertising company that focused in urban transit, one of our proud products are MRT Jakarta. You should look up how we put creative branding in MRT Jakarta trainset and stations! We have fully covered the exterior of trainset in ads, so much more that you presented in Yamanote Line.
Will you do a video on Munich’s u and s bahn network? Munich is unique because of how much track the ubahns share in the center and branch outside the city
Been around the loop many times such a convenient service. The only issue is that if you want to change from this line to other metro lines and you only have a JR pass I suggest you get a suica pass and put some credit on it as soon as you start your time in Tokyo.
Changing lines and having a tight schedule requires knowledge and as such I would suggest when using the tokyo metro system is relax and enjoy it as a part of the holiday.
If you like mazes you will love the tokyo inner city stations as they have crazy amounts of exits even a small station like Ginza has 32 exits and pedestrian tunnels that in many cases go to other stations as such you may not even need to change trains to get to where you are going. This is also great for walking around tokyo in the summer.
YAMANOTE LINE LETS GOOOOOOOOO best line
Wow, that’s some great footage! 😉
I guessed "Yamanote?" seconds before the name came up, and then went yaaaaaay for myself. I'm such a dork, so glad to be here.
shenzhen metro please
what a superb quality Video
I love you wonder around Tokyo with no special direction and when you notice there is more street life, more shops, more people you can be sure that a rail station is not far.
As you mentioned they are urban hearts, fokal points of urban life. Unlike in other countries where stations are undesirable and dirty, stations in Japan are fancy and places you like to go to, like to spend time at and are actually inspiring.
Great video. What makes the Yamanote even more useful is that it’s often the quickest way to travel along the line. It’s often as fast, if not faster, as taking a taxi or driving. The frequency is good and the average speed is also higher than many other urban railways.
Another thing I like about the Japanese railway system is that they renew stations and add platform doors without interrupting the service. They even didn’t close Harajuku Station for a day. Another example, Tokyu switched from overground to underground overnight (there’s a YouTube video about it). You can always rely on the services because they’re so reliable.
The Yamanote line became so popular and it was overcrowded, so JR added the new express Ueno Tokyo line and Tokyo Metro constructed the Fukutoshin line. The Yamanote line has exited and played an important role for such a long time, so the stations attracted even more destinations and redevelopments. It’s how big cities should be built.
Excellent coverage and well reasoned discussion of this amazing line.
The black yamanote train is a really cool collaboration. I was lucky to ride it a few times so far. It's a Collab between Netflix and the yamanote line. Each car is outfitted with art from different Netflix series. It's quite a cool way to do advertising, though it also commemorated 150 years of rail service in Japan. The black color is reminiscent of No. 1
Awesome video! I love learning new things about my favorite trains.
I literally live near a Yamanote line station (Meguro)
4:08 Masks are only for morons
Not surprisingly, the supposed Western tourists to the left of frame are not wearing face masks at Shibuya Scramble Crossing. The young couple have not fallen for the pointless Japanese mask hysteria.
And, neither has the Japanese gentleman to the right 11:21.
Time for Toronto to build a beltline too!
Irony for me is that I use the Tokyo Metro line more often than I do the Yamanote line. In fact, the JR lines I use the most are the JR Chuo Rapid and Sobu lines, because they get me from Shinjuku and Akihabara and vice versa really quickly.
Adds are good, it lowers the cost of the fair.
3:27 One of the reason that those 2 station does not have other train line connection is because of the clear discrimination from Japanese government towards places where there are mostly foreigners. Heck, 1 of the station does not even have escalator or elevator considering the station right next to it is the largest train station in the world by passenger number, Shinjuku.
I live in Tokyo and although the Yamanote Line is very useful, usually you would have to transfer from another line to use it, which can be very annoying, as unlike other railway companies, at most stations, you would have to get out of the main station and then get into the JR station. JR East also doesn’t do much of through running with other companies’ lines as well except for Sotetsu.
The other rail lines mentioned (in other countries) pale in comparison with public transport use in Japan. 37 million daily trips in Tokyo alone, equivalent to everyone in the greater Tokyo region taking one trip a day. Without the rail system (2400 stations and 40+ companies) Tokyo would grind to a halt. That is why road is a bad 2nd option.
Fun fact, as a circle line, it does have an "end" station.
One thing that bothers me about Yamanote Line is: instead of calling clock-wise (CW) and CCW loops, they call them inner-loop and outer-loop. That is so imprecise.
Great video!
To answer the question which urban rail line would be more imprtant to its city than the Yamanote line: I thought of the Brussels North-South corridor: 6 tracks, and cited the busiest railway tunnel in the world
(Teeeeechnically, in any city served by only one rail line, this rail line is more important than the Yamanote line is for Tokyo 🙂 )
The railway is the focal point of every neighborhood in Japan that has a rail station.
did i just see genshin ads on the train? omg
nice video. I've been avid fan of Yamanote sen. It has been a decade though since the last time I rode it. I love it when I ride the entire loop without going out of stations.
The reality of orbital lines being more important than radial lines shows up in Portland with Lines 72 and 75 being the busiest bus lines in the city
I love the Yamanote line, every station has their music interlude. Every 3 minute interval. If you plan to visit Tokio, take a hotel on this line. A full circle takes about a full hour
i live in japan! was just in tokyo last week, avoided yamanote-sen like the plague because it's so crowded. but i had to work at it! it's so well connected that nearly every time i turned to google for a route, it would tell me to use the yamanote-sen lol. in non-pandemic years i would happily enjoy the yamanote-sen because it's so dang convenient.
I unfortunately learned how long the yamanote train was when I boarded the wrong end. I boarded car #11 instead of the first one, which was the nearest one to the hachiko exit. So it took me 3 minutes to walk from one end to another. The crowd did not help my pace. By the time I reached car #1, the next yamanote train already arrived LOL
since then, i've been anal about following google maps' car # recommendations. and on an unrelated note: ikebukuro has the worst wayfinding scheme. i'd say it's more confusing than shinjuku
also, my friend had the fantastic experience of witnessing someone accidentally press the emergency stop button on the yamanote train. according to him, everything stopped including other trains around the station. what a horrible way to commit an oopsie
love japan
7:44 the sad truth of this is that these barriers are there to stop people jumping in front of the trains to kill themselves. My girlfriend lives in Tokyo and she says she sees the delay announcement that someone has died on the tracks almost everyday. They can't afford for those delays to affect the Yamanote line, so they put these barriers up.
Excellent info all around, and it's clear you have a real passion for transit — though I must say, as a Tokyo resident, for as impressive and necessary as the Yamanote line may be, it sure does suck to ride on! 😉 I've heard people speak ill of the Chuo line, and the Saikyo line, and basically every other major Tokyo line for being too crowded, but every one of them absolutely PALES in comparison to the Yamanote line. Your odds of finding a seat are about the same as winning the lottery, and most likely, you WILL be squished into a tiny space, tight up against like 3 or 4 businessmen in suits, with no ability to move or really do much of anything until it's time to get off.
Whenever at all possible, I always try to take some line OTHER than Yamanote. It's basically the last resort train line — reliable as all hell, and likely to get you to where you're going fast, but bound to be an unpleasant ride until you get there.
My favourite train line ^^
Edit: Arknights ads on it!?
I know I should focus on the video but the Ark Knights anime add just grabs my attention😆
Back in 2013 I was one of those tourists who got away relying solely on the Yamanote line for getting around Tokyo.
While people and things accidentally falling onto the tracks does happen, the role that platform barriers and other installations play in suicide prevention cannot be understated, in fact I'd argue that they are the leading reason to have them in the first place. There has been a lot of talk in recent years of installing such barriers in Vancouver's Skytrain stations primarily because of this. Other things such as the switch to melodies upon train arrival, blue light installations, and other outreach methods are either completely or in part to combat suicide.
The best thing about stations in Japan (and in general in Japan) is the ubiquity of free toilets. Having said that, I'm always surprised how many people line up to use number two. I tend to avoid that since they can be a real mess.
To mention what you said about ads, it reminds me of how here in Seoul, buses play audio ads. The audio announcing the next stop will play, and then an audio ad will play right after. To me, this seems like more of a downside than visual ads, because you have to be listening to the bus announcements (and you can’t just not listen otherwise you’ll miss your stop— some buses don’t have screens where the stop is announced).
When visiting Tokyo last month, I was so surprised to see how few stations have platform gates compared to Seoul (I don’t think I’ve seen a station without them here in Seoul). As someone with an irrational fear of falling onto the tracks, it freaked me out a little!😅