イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

イタリア産天然溶岩石を使った溶岩ホットヨガスタジオ「オンザショア」

Tachikawa Station Guide: The History Walk of Tama’s Busiest Station

A station above the tracks, a station building, and a town joined by decks

Leaf through the city’s timeline and you find even small postwar station events recorded. In 1964 (Showa 39), an unmanned tank car ran away inside the station yard and caused a fire. The station of a base town carries memories of accidents too.

The North Exit station building, rebuilt over the tracks in 1982, photographed in 2021
The North Exit station building, rebuilt over the tracks in 1982, photographed in 2021
Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

The turning point coincided with the base’s return. In 1977 (Showa 52), the same year Tachikawa Base was fully returned, the timeline notes “Japanese National Railways plans to rebuild Tachikawa Station.” JNR began improvement work in 1979, a temporary station building went up in 1981, and in October 1982 (Showa 57), the new station building, the station shopping complex and the north–south free passage were completed. The chronology in the museum’s guide also lists, for the same month, the new station building, the opening of the north–south free passage, and the opening of the station complex.

The station complex opened under the name “WILL,” and according to Kono Machi Archives it was renamed LUMINE Tachikawa in 1992 (Heisei 4). Once the station became a “bridge-type” building sitting over the tracks, north and south were joined by a passage crossing above the rails. The North and South exits, born 41 years apart, finally became the two ends of a single walkway.

In 1987 (Showa 62), Japanese National Railways was split up and privatised, and Tachikawa became a JR East station. In 1989 (Heisei 1), the city held events to mark the station’s 100th anniversary. At 100, the station still meant to grow.

In November 1998 (Heisei 10), the Tama Toshi Monorail opened from Kamikitadai to Tachikawa-Kita Station, and in January 2000 (Heisei 12) it was extended to Tama Center, adding Tachikawa-Minami Station. The monorail running north–south crosses the Chuo Line running east–west. The chronology in the museum’s guide ends with those two openings. A story of lines that began with the Meiji Kobu Railway closes with a track in the air. I think that is rather stylish editing.

Around the station, elevated walkways for pedestrians spread like a web. According to the city’s timeline, a pedestrian deck at the South Exit came into use in 1999 (Heisei 11), part of the decks over the North and South Exit plazas opened in 2001, and the decks of the South and North exits were opened in 2005 (Heisei 17). Cars on the ground, people on the second level. Stand at Tachikawa’s North Exit and you can almost forget there is ground in front of the station at all.

In that same year, 1999, according to Kono Machi Archives, Granduo Tachikawa, a shopping complex directly connected to the station, opened at the South Exit. The South Exit at last had a front door that could stand shoulder to shoulder with the North. On the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 (Heisei 23), the city’s timeline records that it dealt with people around Tachikawa Station who were unable to get home. A station where people gather becomes a place where people gather when they cannot move, too.

The inside of the station changed as well. In 2007 (Heisei 19), the West and South ticket gates opened, along with ecute Tachikawa, a shopping area inside the station. In 2016 (Heisei 28), a western free passage linking north and south beneath the monorail opened, and the North ticket gates were added. Under that year, the city’s timeline lists the opening of Takurosu Plaza (タクロス広場) and the North gate, and the opening of the western free passage. So the gates that began as a single North Exit became five.

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How to walk Tachikawa Station: picking up 130 years of traces

Having followed the records this far, I came up with an order for walking the station: moving above and below the tracks, following the eras.

First, stand on the North Exit deck. Around the bus terminal below is where the Meiji teahouse stood, and in one corner is Bokusui’s poem monument. Looking down from the deck to find it reminds you that there is still ground in front of the station. According to the city’s timeline, the clock tower and monument at the North Exit plaza were installed in 1987 (Showa 62), and the deck’s arch was repainted in 2013 (Heisei 25). Even the meeting-point landmarks have their histories.

Next, check the name of Midorikawa-dori, the street running north from the North Exit. The name of the drainage channel dug by a town troubled by water in front of its station survives in the street. Counting from that Taisho-era petition to the town assembly, a hundred years of rain lie behind the name.

Head back into the station building and cross south through the north–south free passage completed in 1982 (Showa 57). For the first 93 years after the station opened, this passage over the tracks did not exist. As you take in its width, imagine the people who went around to the other side through an underpass or across a level crossing.

Once out at the South Exit, come down from the deck and look at how the streets meet. The grid laid down by early-Showa land consolidation is the skeleton of today’s streets. Redevelopment has changed the buildings in front of the station, but the direction of the streets does not change so easily.

Finally, go underground. The city’s timeline records that the underpass at Tachikawa Station’s East level crossing was completed in 1962 (Showa 37), and that in 2023 (Reiwa 5) the wall art in the Tachikawa Station East Underpass was renewed by art brut artists. In 2019 (Reiwa 1), wall art was added to the western underpass too. Judging by the names, a passage descended from the Showa underpass dug beside a level crossing has become a walk among paintings. Shuttle between the North Exit deck and the underpass, above and below, and you will have walked through this station’s 130 years.

One warning. Moving between underpasses, free passages and decks, you will sometimes lose track of whether you are on the north or south side of the station. The signboards are kind, but they do not work on people who start walking before reading them.

All of these spots are outside the ticket gates, so you don’t need a platform ticket. An hour is enough, even at a leisurely pace.

Why a stop on the edge of a village became Tama’s busiest station

Let me line up the numbers once more. In JR East’s fiscal 2024 table, Tachikawa Station’s average daily boardings were 154,091, ranking 14th among all its stations. In the same table, Kichijoji had 128,246, Kokubunji 101,156, Machida 100,118 and Hachioji 77,401. No station in the Tama area ranks above Tachikawa.

Why did this happen? Half of the answer that emerged from the records is this.

Because the busy highway towns turned down the railway, the line ran straight across the empty plateau, and near its end Tachikawa, on the edge of its village, welcomed it. That there were no houses around the station meant, flipped over, that there was all the room in the world to grow. The North Exit opened in exchange for water, and later the airfield came to the north. The South Exit opened together with a chessboard grid of consolidated fields, and a shopping street was born. Limestone from the mountains and gravel from the river each stretched a railway to meet at Tachikawa. And there were villagers who attracted a middle school on the grounds that there was nothing here.

The other half, as I see it, is this. Tachikawa Station has always stood on the side of welcoming something in. It welcomed a railway others had refused, then aeroplanes, then a base, and once the base left, it welcomed a park, a new town and a monorail onto that broad land. With each welcome, the gates multiplied, the passages multiplied, and the decks reached out into the air. It is less a station than a house that keeps adding doors.

Plenty of people may still think “there’s nothing in Tachikawa.” But Tachikawa Station’s history begins with exactly that “nothing.” Because it was an empty plateau, the line ran straight; because the station front was empty, a school came; because the returned land was empty, a new town could be drawn on it. To the stop a village of 1,920 invited for itself, 150,000 people a day now come to board. What fills the rest of that gap, I suspect, is the number of people who step out of the gates and start walking from here.

Quiz answer

The answer is C, 41 years. Tachikawa Station opened in 1889 (Meiji 22) with a North Exit only, and the South Exit opened in March 1930 (Showa 5) (according to the Tachikawa City Museum of History and Folklore’s guide and the city’s timeline).

Before you go

  • Tachikawa Station: 2-chome Akebono-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. JR Chuo Line, Ome Line (Itsukaichi Line trains also run in), and Nambu Line. Five ticket-gate areas: East, West, North, South and Granduo. Check station maps and ticket-office hours on JR East’s station information page: https://www.jreast.co.jp/estation/station/info.aspx?StationCD=958
  • Getting there: From Shinjuku, take the JR Chuo Line west to Tachikawa. From Tokyo Station it is 37.5 km, about 40 minutes by Special Rapid. Carry an IC card such as Suica or PASMO.
  • A sample route around the station: From the North Exit deck, look down on the bus terminal and find the corner with Bokusui’s poem monument. Follow the decks to Faret Tachikawa (3 minutes’ walk from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station, according to Faret Tachikawa Art’s official guide). Come back, go through the north–south free passage and out to the grid of streets on the South Exit side. The station and its surroundings alone take about an hour.
  • Nearby places to combine: The Akebono Gate of Showa Kinen Park is about 10 minutes from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station (according to the park’s official access page: https://www.showakinen-koen.jp/access/ ). To the south, Suwa Shrine is a 10-minute walk (according to the shrine’s official page: https://suwajinja.or.jp/access.html , Japanese). If you take the Tama Monorail north or south, check services on its official site: https://www.tama-monorail.co.jp/
  • For more railway history: Tachikawa City Museum of History and Folklore (3-12-34 Fujimi-cho, Tachikawa; 20 minutes’ walk from Nishi-Tachikawa Station on the JR Ome Line). Its guide “The Opening of the Kobu Railway” can be read on the city’s website. Check opening hours and closing days on the city’s page: https://www.city.tachikawa.lg.jp/kanko/bunka/1004244/1004849/1004905.html (Japanese)
  • Station shopping: LUMINE Tachikawa https://www.lumine.ne.jp/tachikawa/ / ecute Tachikawa https://www.ecute.jp/tachikawa (check opening hours on each official site)

Out through the gates, a breather by the North Exit

Look round all five sets of gates, go back and forth across the decks, walk the grid of the South Exit, and the step count piles up more than you’d expect from the station alone. I had thought of a station as somewhere you pass through, but on foot it turns out to be quite big.

Head back to the North Exit, come down from the deck and walk for one minute. At 2-14-10 Akebono-cho, Tachikawa, on the 3rd floor of the Etoile Building, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a lava-stone hot yoga studio where you practise in a room laid with lava-stone plates. There is also room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, the same hours whatever the day, so you can drop in in the morning once the first rush has settled or at night as the last trains approach.

First-timers can book a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 (tax included), with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat rental included. Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

  • Studio website: https://ontheshore.jp/
  • Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

On opening day there was a single gate, and it faced north. On that North Exit side, today too, someone is stepping out of the gates and deciding which way to walk.

Cover photo: Tachikawa Station’s North Exit seen from the pedestrian deck, photographed in April 2018 (Photo: DiKnK8713 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

More Tachikawa Walks

All Tachikawa Walks (English)

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