Now and Then 3

Sakuragicho Station: Meiji Era and Today

"Yokohama Station was completed in 1871. Designed by an American named R.P. Bridgens. It was the terminus of the first railway line in Japan. Train service began in 1872, a 29 kilometer-long railroad between Yokohama and Shimbashi. Shimbashi Station was a twin in design.

Yokohama Station was renamed Sakuragicho in 1915. A new Yokohama Station was built on the Tokaido. The station building disintegrated in the 1923 Kanto Earthquake.

Japan’s entry into the rail age was not without mishaps. Some Japanese would remove their clogs and set them on the platform before boarding the train, arriving at their destination unshod, their footgear where they had left it."
(Burritt Sabin, 'A historical guide to Yokohama', ed. Yurindo, Yokohama, 2002, p. 122-123)


"In 1951 a train caught fire while stopped at sakuragicho Station. People struggled in vain to get out of the windows, but before they could be rescued 106 burned to death."
(John Carroll, 'Trail of Two Cities', ed. Kodansha, Tokyo, 1994, p. 45)