A long farewell to Tokyo and Ueno Monorail.
Japan is a country with a seemingly endless number of trains and subways. monorailHowever, it’s even harder to find, and following an announcement from the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, it’s about to get a little harder. Next month, the Ueno Zoo Monorail will officially be permanently decommissioned and then dismantled.
It’s a sad but not shocking development. Japan’s oldest monorail, opened in 1957. As the name suggests, the Ueno Zoo Monorail operates within Ueno Zoo. Ueno park. The 300-meter-long monorail connects his two stations on the east and west sides of the zoo.
▼Video from the time the monorail opened in 1957
The trip takes about 1.5 minutes and you can also walk between the east and west sides of the park.but The novelty of riding the only rail and the fact that it is strictly a leisure line means that many people have fond family memories of the Ueno Zoo Monorail, from riding them myself as a child and riding them with my children and grandchildren. These are not just examples of local nostalgia, as Ueno Zoo is a major attraction for domestic travelers visiting Tokyo from other parts of Japan.
▼2019 Monorail
Normally, this would be the signal for train fans to head to Ueno for their final ride. Unfortunately that’s not an option. The Ueno Zoo Monorail has not been in operation since 2019, when it was discontinued due to aging trains and rails, and like many other things, plans for the monorail’s future seem to have stalled during the pandemic. Looked. In July of this year, the Transportation Bureau announced that the Ueno Zoo Monorail would officially be discontinued in the summer of 2024, leading to a glimmer of hope that it might run a few final times by then, with the timetable being moved up this week. December 27th became the official final day for the monorail..
According to the bureau, demolition work will begin from January next year, the remains of the monorail will be removed by the end of next fiscal year (spring 2025), and a “new replacement vehicle” will be in service by the end of the year. Next year (i.e. Spring 2026). However, judging from the wording, it does not seem to be a monorail, and the only monorail left in Tokyo is the Tokyo Monorail, which connects Hamamatsucho Station and Haneda Airport.
sauce: NHK News Web, Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation via IT media
Top image: Wikipedia/Pekepon
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