Shinjuku Station

History

Shinjuku Station opened in 1885 as a stop on Nippon Railway's Akabane-Shinagawa line (now part of the Yamanote Line). The kanji "新宿" shin juku literally stand for "new (relay-)station". Shinjuku was still a quiet community at the time and the station was not heavily trafficked at first. When the Kobu Railway (now a part of the Chūō Main Line) opened between Shinjuku and Tachikawa Station in 1889, farms were still present near the station. The Keiō Line connected to the station from the west in 1915. Around this period, the east side of the station, where the Naito Shinjuku, a former Shukuba existed, was bustling with people. When the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake happened, the area located in the east side of the station received relatively small damage compared to Nihonbashi. Since the station was a convenient place to travel, many stores relocated near the station after the earthquake. Odakyu Electric Railway opened the Odakyū Odawara Line from Shinjuku to Odawara in 1927. As the platforms of the station were at the west side of the station, traffic in the west exit increased, although it did not compare to that of the east exit.

Japanese government urban planner Kensaburo Kondo designed a major revamp of the station in 1933, which included a large public square on the west side completed in 1941. Kondo's plan also called for extending the Tokyu Toyoko Line to a new underground terminal on the west side of the station and constructing an east–west underground line that would be served by the Seibu Railway and the Tokyo Kosoku Railway (forerunner of Tokyo Metro), while the Keio and Odakyu lines would use above-ground terminals to the west of the JR station. These plans were suspended upon the onset of World War II but influenced the current layout of the station area. During World War II, American bombings damaged the substation Keio used to power the railway line, resulting in reduced voltage. This prevented Keio services from using the bridges at the former Kōshū Kaidō. The Keio Shinjuku Station's platforms were forced to relocate to the west side of the station as a result.

The Seibu Shinjuku Line was extended from Takadanobaba Station to Seibu Shinjuku Station in 1952. Seibu Shinjuku was built as a temporary station pending a planned redevelopment of the east side of Shinjuku Station, which was to feature a large station building that would house a new Seibu terminal on its second floor. Seibu abandoned its plan to use the building due to a lack of space for trains longer than six cars; the building is now known as Lumine Est and retains some design features originally intended to accommodate the Seibu terminal (in particular, a very high ceiling on the first floor and a very low ceiling on the second floor). In the late 1980s, Seibu planned to build an underground terminal on the east side of Shinjuku but indefinitely postponed the plan in 1995 due to costs and declining passenger growth.

Keiō Shinjuku Station

When the Keio Line extended to Shinjuku in 1915, its terminal was located several blocks east of the government railway (presently JR) station. The terminal was first named Shinjuku-Oiwake Station (新宿追分駅) and was on the street near the Isetan department store. In 1927, the station was moved from the street to a newly built terminal adjacent to the original station. The station building housed a department store. The station name was changed to Yotsuya-Shinjuku Station (四谷新宿駅) in 1930 and again to Keiō Shinjuku Station (京王新宿駅) in 1937.

The tracks from the terminal were on the Kōshū Kaidō highway, which crosses the Yamanote Line and the Chūō Line in front of the south entrance of Shinjuku Station by a bridge. The Keiō Line had a station for access to Shinjuku Station, named Teishajō-mae Station (停車場前駅) and renamed in 1937 Shōsen Shinjuku Ekimae Station (省線新宿駅前駅).

In July 1945, the terminal of the Keiō Line was relocated to the present location, though on the ground level, on the west side of Shinjuku Station. Keiō Shinjuku Station and Shōsen Shinjuku Ekimae Station were closed. This was because the trains faced difficulty in climbing up the slopes of the bridge over the governmental railway after one of the nearby transformer substations was destroyed by an air raid. The site of Keiō Shinjuku Station near Shinjuku-Sanchōme subway station is now occupied by two buildings owned by Keiō: Keiō Shinjuku Sanchōme Building and Keiō Shinjuku Oiwake Building.

Lines

Shinjuku is served by the following railway systems:

JR East:

■ Chūō Main Line (Limited Express)

Chūō Line (Rapid)

Chūō-Sōbu Line

Saikyō Line

Shōnan–Shinjuku Line

Yamanote Line

Keio Corporation:

Keio Line

Keio New Line

Odakyu Electric Railway:

Odakyu Odawara Line

Toei Subway:

Ōedo Line

Shinjuku Line

Tokyo Metro:

Marunouchi Line

Station facilities

JR East

The station is centered around facilities servicing the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) lines. These consist of eight ground-level island platforms (16 tracks) on a north–south axis, connected by two overhead and two underground concourses. Most JR services here are urban and suburban mass transit lines, although many limited express services to Kōfu and Matsumoto on the Chūō Main Line and to Nikkō and Kinugawa Onsen via joint operations with the private Tōbu Railway also begin and end at this station, including Narita Express services to and from Narita International Airport. The JR section alone handles an average of 1.5 million passengers a day.

Odakyu

The terminus for the private Odakyu Odawara Line is parallel to the JR platforms on the west side and handles an average of 450,000 passengers daily. This is a major commuter route stretching southwest through the suburbs and out towards the coastal city of Odawara and the mountains of Hakone. The ten platforms are built on two levels beneath the Odakyu department store; three express service tracks (six platforms) on the ground level and two tracks (four platforms) on the level below. Each track has platforms on both sides in order to completely separate boarding and alighting passengers.

Chest-high platform screen doors were added to platforms 4 and 5 in September 2012.

Keio/Toei Subway (Toei Shinjuku Line)

Keio operates two sections of Shinjuku Station, the traditional Keio Line stub terminal and a separate through station connecting the Keio New Line with the Toei Shinjuku Line. In 2019, 788,567 passengers used the Keio complex daily (Keio and Keio New Lines), which makes it among the busiest among the non-JR Group railways of Japan.

The Keio Line concourse is located to the west of the Odakyu line concourse, two floors below ground level under the Keio department store. It consists of three platforms stretching north to south. An additional thin platform between Platforms 2 and 3 is used for alighting only. This suburban commuter line links Shinjuku to the city of Hachiōji to the west. Chest-high platform edge doors were introduced on the Keio Line platforms in March 2014. The doors are different colours for each platform; the doors on Platform 2 are green.

The shared facilities for the Toei Shinjuku subway line and the Keiō New Line are distinctively called Keiō New Line Shinjuku Station (新線新宿駅, Shinsen Shinjuku-eki) and consist of two platforms stretching east–west five floors beneath the Kōshū Kaidō avenue to the southwest of the JR section. The concourse is managed by Keio Corporation but is in a separate location from the main Keio platforms. Further south (and deeper underground) are the two north-to-south Toei Ōedo subway line platforms.

Toei Subway (Toei Oedo Line)

Toei Ōedo Line's two underground platforms stretch north–south to the south of the Toei Shinjuku Line and Keio New Line facilities. This is on the 7th basement floor of Tokyo prefectural road 414(Yotsuya-Tsunohazu Ave.).

Tokyo Metro

Tokyo Metro's two Marunouchi Line underground platforms stretch east–west to the north of the JR and Odakyu facilities, directly below the Metro Promenade underground mall.

Commercial facilities

Many department stores and shopping malls are built directly into the station, some operated by the railroads. These include:

Lumine Est – above JR's east exit

Odakyu department store – above the Odakyu line concourse (Closed down in October 2022.)

Odakyu Mylord – above the southern end of the Odakyu line concourse

Lumine 1 shopping mall – above the Keio Line concourse

Lumine 2 shopping mall – above JR's south and Lumine exits

Keio Department store – above the Keio Line concourse

Keio Mall – underground mall to the southwest of the Keio Line concourse

Odakyu Ace – underground malls beneath the bus terminal by the west exit.

In addition to the above, the Metro Promenade, which is an underground mall owned by Tokyo Metro, extends eastwards from the station beneath Shinjuku-dori avenue, all the way to the adjacent Shinjuku-sanchōme station with 60 exits along the way. The Metro Promenade in turn connects to Shinjuku Subnade, another underground shopping mall, which leads onto Seibu Railway's Seibu-Shinjuku station.

Shinjuku Station is connected by underground passageways and shopping malls to

Nishi-shinjuku Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)

Seibu-Shinjuku Station (Seibu Shinjuku Line)

Shinjuku-nishiguchi Station (Toei Ōedo Line)

Bus terminals

There is a bus terminal at the west exit servicing both local and long-distance buses and a JR Highway Bus terminal at the New South Gates.

On April 4, 2016, the new bus terminal and commercial facilities nearby the south exit, named Busta Shinjuku (Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal), opened for service. Considerable numbers of coaches and airport buses depart from this new terminal.

Passenger statistics

1953－2000

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Government

The figures below are the official number of passengers entering and exiting (except for JR East) each day released by each train operator. The figure for JR East only includes entering passengers.

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (1913–1935)

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (1953–2000)

2000－present

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (2001–present)

Source: Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Cultural references

The station and other parts of the Toei Ōedo Line are referenced in the Digimon Adventure franchise. Contemporary British painter Carl Randall (who spent ten years living in Tokyo as an artist) depicted the station area in his large oil painting Shinjuku, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2013.

Shinjuku also served as the backdrop to the finale of the manga/anime Jujutsu Kaisen from Chapters 223-267, in the “Inhuman Makyo Shinjuku Showdown”.