Inner Loop or Outer Loop: A Memo on the Yamanote Line — Epoche B1
MEMO To: Staff visiting the Tokyo office From: K. Tanaka, Administration Date: 14 November Subject: The Yamanote line — inner loop, outer loop Two colleagues lost most of an hour on the Yamanote line last month. Both boarded at Tokyo Station for a meeting near Ueno, and both were on a correct train. This memo explains how that is possible. Background. The Yamanote line is a circle: thirty stations, about an hour for a full lap, and no last stop. A train cannot be signed “for Ueno”, because every Yamanote train reaches Ueno eventually. Trains are signed by direction instead: soto-mawari , the outer loop, and uchi-mawari , the inner loop. The names come from left-hand running: Japanese trains keep left, so of the circle's two tracks, the outer one carries the clockwise trains and the inner one the anticlockwise trains. Outer = clockwise, inner = anticlockwise. The consequence. From Tokyo Station, the inner loop reaches Ueno in four stops, about eight minutes. The outer loop also reaches Ueno — after twenty-six stops, most of the hour. Both trains say “Yamanote”; both are green; only the loop name differs. That is where the hour went. Procedure. Before boarding, check whether the destination lies clockwise or anticlockwise; the wall map above every platform shows the circle. Read the platform sign's list of next stations, not just the line's colour. Boarded the wrong loop? Get off anywhere and cross to the opposite platform. The fare is no trap: the system charges the shortest way round regardless of the loop ridden. Questions to Administration, extension 214. References Japan Transit Planner (various years). Ekitan Co., Ltd. Google Maps (various years). Google LLC.