4K】Japan Walk – Tokyo ,立川市, Tachikawa ,January 2021,#Japan #Tokyo #立川市, Tachikawa-shi
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Tachikawa is a city of about 180,000 inhabitants on the western outskirts of Tokyo. The city serves as a major traffic hub, shopping center and industrial zone.
The JR Chuo Main Line runs in one direction to Mitaka, Shinjuku and Tokyo Stations, in the other to Hachioji, Takao, Kofu (Yamanashi Prefecture) and Matsumoto (Nagano Prefecture), usually necessitating a transfer at Tachikawa.
Tachikawa is also the main transfer point to the Ome Line in direction Ome and Okutama. The JR Nambu Line runs between Tachikawa and Kawasaki (Kanagawa Prefecture).
In short walking distance from JR Tachikawa Station are two stations of the Tama Toshi Monorail connecting the outer western suburbs of Tokyo in a north-south direction. Tachikawa Kita Station is just a little north of Tachikawa Station, Tachikawa Minami just a little south.
This crossroads of rail lines makes the Tachikawa Station area not only one of the busiest train transfer points in western Tokyo, it makes the station area also a crowded retail business center.
Several department stores are built right on top of Tachikawa Station, many more stores are open to customers right outside it.
The densely built-up high-rise area in the immediate vicinity of Tachikawa Station with its endless flows of pedestrians on the third-floor bridges spanning between the concrete structures, the buses and taxis down below and the monorail trains silently whizzing by on their elevated tracks gives the Tachikawa Station surroundings a decidedly urban, almost futuristic air.
Monorail tracks close to Tamagawajosui Station, Tokyo.
Monorail tracks close to Tamagawajosui Station, Tokyo
Modern City
For the most part, Tachikawa is a very modern city even beyond the station area. Tachikawa is located on the Musashi Plains, the wide flatlands covering much of Saitama Prefecture and stretching south into the outlaying western parts of Tokyo.
In the distance, the mountains of Okutama are in clear view but up to their foothills, the area is covered by modern industrial facilities – not of the old smoke-spewing variety but of their quiet, almost anonymous edition of today. From the outside, they are sprawling, non-descript buildings with huge parking lots. Inside, most likely rows of sophisticated robots work the fully automated assembly lines, the parking lots serving the technicians and an army of sales representatives.
Equally large are the concrete blocks belonging to various national research institutions and the many administrative office buildings of the western Tokyo region.
Monorail tracks seen from a train rear window.
Monorail tracks seen from a Tama Toshi Monorail train rear window
Tama Toshi Monorail
Cutting through that landscape in north-south fashion is the Tama Toshi Monorail, an elevated train line connecting Higashi Yamato City to the north with the giant housing projects of Tama New Town to the south.
Seen from the ground, the elevated tracks and their trains just add to the general atmosphere of Tachikawa – an atmosphere of a city shaped by technology.
Riding a monorail train on the other hand offers great views of the vast expanse of Tachikawa and its enterprises and institutions, interspersed by grand-scale housing projects and swaths of single house neighborhoods. On clear winter days, Mount Fuji towers in the distance.
Tamagawa Josui near Tamagawa Station.
Tamagawa Josui near Tamagawajosui Station
Tamagawa Josui
Tamagawajosui Station is named after the Tamagawa Josui, a historic fresh water canal closely running by the station. Almost the entire length of the Tamagawa Josui from Hamura further west on the Ome Line right into Shinjuku has been designed as historical walkway.
You can join that walkway right outside Tamagawajosui Station in both directions. It is a pleasant walk along the narrow, tree-lined canal, offering quiet, green relief from all the concrete of Tachikawa.
Modern-day Tachikawa was founded only in the late 19th century, in 1889 to be exact. In April of that year, Tachikawa Village became officially recognized on the cadaster – in exactly the same month when the Tachikawa Train Station opened.
History took its course from then one might say. It did – but that is not to say that there aren’t any much older historic structures surviving on the grounds now covered by Tachikawa City.
AloJapan.com