The Inner Loop of the Yamanote Line
- Thread starter kahroba
- Start date
Flaminius
hedomodo
日本語 / japāniski / יפנית
Yamanote Line is a looped train service. If you board a train at a Yamanote-station and stay inside for an hour, you will be able to alight at the same train station. Now, trains on the Inner Loop move anticlockwise. If you start at Tōkyō Station, you will be at Ikebukuro Station in 15 minutes, at Shinjuku after another 15 minutes, and at Shinagawa after three quarters of an hour since Tōkyō, and finally be back there in one hour. The Outer Loop travels from Tōkyō to Shinagawa, to Shinjuku and Ikebukuro until it comes back to Tōkyō.
It must be noted that inner and outer refers to the physical placement of the train tracks. It makes sense in a country where lefthand-side traffic is the norm.
N.B.: 内回り (Inner Loop) and 外回り (Outer Loop) are official terms, not Ms. Yu's literary coinage.
It must be noted that inner and outer refers to the physical placement of the train tracks. It makes sense in a country where lefthand-side traffic is the norm.
N.B.: 内回り (Inner Loop) and 外回り (Outer Loop) are official terms, not Ms. Yu's literary coinage.
Last edited:
gengo
Senior Member
American English
Just to add to Flam's excellent reply: All train lines go back and forth two ways, and in most cases you can indicate the direction by using a compass direction, such as the eastbound train of a certain line.
However, with a loop line, the train does not move in a certain compass direction, so in Tokyo they decided to refer to the inner and outer loops. Trains pass each other on the left side, just as cars do in Japan, so the train on the inner loop moves counter-clockwise.
I actually think the title might have been clearer if it were "Counter-clockwise Loop of the Yamanote Line." "Inner loop" is a bit confusing because it makes us think that the route is different from that of the outer loop.