Tama Monorail from Tachikawa: A Guide to Views, Mt. Fuji and History

Chasing Diamond Fuji from the Window Around the Winter Solstice

The moment the setting sun sinks exactly onto the summit of Mt. Fuji is called “Diamond Fuji.” Every year from late autumn into winter the company opens a special web page showing where and when it can be seen. According to its press releases, along the line it is visible only between Tama Center Station and the area around Tachikawa-Minami Station, for about two and a half months either side of the winter solstice. The 2023 guide gave the viewing period as 14 November to 29 January of the following year.

What is interesting is that the place where you can see it moves day by day. The company’s 2019 leaflet shows the movement clearly. In mid-November it is around Tama Center Station; in late November, Takahata-Fudo; at the end of November and the beginning of December it moves north to Manganji and Koshu-Kaido; and from about 6 to 12 December it reaches Shibasaki-Taiikukan. After New Year it turns back south, returning to Tama Center at the end of January. The times are all from a little after 4 p.m. to around 4:45 at the end of January. In the 2019 leaflet, the earliest was about 4:09 p.m. in early December; at Tama Center Station in mid-November it was about 4:17, and at the end of January it moved to around 4:44 to 4:47. A little early for the commute home from work. Better to ride on a day off in the afternoon, having checked the time in advance. The monorail’s stations mark, like the graduations on a ruler, the seasonal shift in where the sun goes down.

Who makes this timetable? In a corner of the company’s 2016–2017 poster there was a small note: the times shown were calculated by the Tama Monorail using the 3D mapping software “Kashmir 3D.” The railway’s staff line up Mt. Fuji and the sun inside mapping software and work out the date and minute for each station. A company that draws up train schedules draws up a schedule for the sun as well. The same poster used a photograph taken from Manganji Station on 29 November 2011. So this is a view the company has been proudly showing off for at least a decade and more. In 2017 it even called for photos of the sun setting on Fuji’s summit, with prize money. In 2023 there was a campaign in which five people, chosen by lottery from those who posted photos with a hashtag, won two one-day passes each. The company cannot wait for its passengers to photograph Fuji.

You can see it from station platforms, too. The company’s 2018 and 2019 materials say Diamond Fuji can be seen from the platforms of Manganji, Koshu-Kaido and Shibasaki-Taiikukan stations. On the platform of Shibasaki-Taiikukan, the station next to Tachikawa-Minami and three minutes from Tachikawa-Kita, on a winter evening, the sun is swallowed by the summit of Mt. Fuji. You can see Diamond Fuji from the platform of the station right next to Tachikawa. That is a line Tachikawa people are free to tell someone tomorrow. As the leaflet says, though, you need a platform ticket to go inside the gates. On some days the weather hides it, and the times can shift a little.

An unmoving mountain, a moving sun and a moving window. The time when all three meet at one point is very short. Add a fourth element — me, prone to misreading timetables — and the chances of success grow slimmer still.

Why do people wait for this alignment? Mt. Fuji is there every day. The sun sets every day. And yet, for the few minutes when the two meet, people look up the time and board a train specially. I think they want to be present at the moment when something ordinary takes, just once, a special shape. The other half of the reason, each person standing at the window can take home for themselves.

For those who want to see it from the ground, there is another way. The Tama River green space of the 100 Views of Fuji is about 500 metres south-east along the Negawa Greenway from Shibasaki-Taiikukan. The Fuji you saw from the window, you now look up at from the riverbank.

Now, a question.

The Wanderer’s Quiz

Inside the Tama Monorail, what is the thermostat set to when the heating is on?

• A: 18°C
• B: 22°C
• C: 25°C

The answer comes with the answer to the mystery. First, let’s see how the sky road is protected.

Wind, Earthquakes and Dropped Belongings: How the Road in the Sky Is Kept Safe

A vehicle that runs high up has worries a railway on the ground does not. The company’s safety report answers them one by one.

The basis of operation, since opening, has been in-cab signalling ATC (automatic train control), with trains driven automatically between stations by a computer system centred on ATO (automatic train operation). Every station has had platform doors since opening. The possibility of falling from a height was designed out from the start. Even if people don’t fall, though, things do. According to the FAQ page, because high-voltage current runs beneath the platforms, dropped items cannot be retrieved during operating hours. They are picked up after the last train, once it has been confirmed the power is off, and returned at the station office the next day or later. Your lost property spends a night in mid-air.

Watching the wind is the job of the anemometers on the Tachihi Bridge and the Takamatsu Junction Bridge. At 20 metres per second or more, operations may be suspended depending on conditions; at 25 metres per second or more, trains stop immediately. Seismometers are installed at the Tachikawa and Higashi-Nakano substations, and the control centre has an earthquake early-warning system that displays predicted seismic intensity and arrival times for Tama Center, Takahata-Fudo, Tachikawa-Kita, Tamagawa-Josui, Kamikitadai and other points. At seismic intensity 4 on the Japanese scale, trains run with caution at 25 km/h or less; at 5-lower or above, they stop until safety has been confirmed. For when a train gets stuck between stations, staff repeatedly train in rescuing passengers using a side-transfer device, and the depot even has training equipment for evacuation chutes.

As for the trains, Tokyo Metropolitan audit documents for fiscal 2006 record fixed four-car sets with a capacity of 410 to 416 passengers. The company’s page on its safety efforts mentions the 1000 series cars. Four cars straddling a single girder carry more than 400 people when full, running high above the ground. Thinking about it that way, the grey girder suddenly looks rather strong.

The temperature inside: 25 degrees for cooling, 22 for heating. A thermostat question that in many households becomes a fight over the remote control has long since been settled by this company, in numbers.

The sky road has residents too. The company’s PR officer is a character named Tamao. According to the official introduction, his birthday is 8 April, his personality is “a slightly cheeky show-off (but impossible to dislike),” his special move is “wiggling his bottom,” and his favourite foods are manju buns and green tea. His hobby is collecting hats, and his favourite outings are touring old farmhouses and town walks looking for seasonal flowers and manju. His birthday, 8 April, is the same date as the company’s founding: 8 April 1986. Whether it is a coincidence is not stated, but I would bet on not.

The page recording Tamao’s work lists depot tours, the “Tama-Mono Festival,” and even an appearance at the “Tachikawa Strongest Mascot Championship” held at Arena Tachikawa Tachihi. Tachikawa has a contest to decide the strongest mascot. It has even reached its fourth edition. Tell people from outside the city and they will usually ask you to repeat it at least once.

The company has other characters on its books too. “Tetsudo Musume” (“railway girls”), a nationwide line of characters wearing real railway companies’ uniforms, includes two from the Tama Monorail: “Izumi Tachikawa” and “Saki Manganji.” Their family names are station names, and one of them is called Tachikawa. One of the two poster girls of the sky road carries the name of Tachikawa.

And on the page about earthquake measures, there was a sentence that solves the opening mystery.

Why Does the Road in the Sky Run Above the Roads?

The safety report explains why the track girders are fitted with devices to stop them falling off their pillars: because almost all of the route is above roads, and if a girder fell, the damage would be enormous.

The sky road was, after all, above the ground road. And not by chance. Read the materials on the extension that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced on 9 May 2025 and it becomes clear. From Kamikitadai Station to around Hakonegasaki Station: 7.0 kilometres of double track, 7 stations, opening in the mid-2030s, project cost about 129 billion yen. The pillars, girders and station buildings are to be built by Tokyo Metropolis as the “infrastructure part,” and the trains, overhead power lines and ticket machines by the company as the “non-infrastructure part.” Under that explanation is a small note: widening of the Shin-Ome Kaido road, which will provide the space for the line, has already begun.

The national documents also list how the extension came about. In April 2016, Report No. 198 of the Council for Transport Policy positioned extensions in three directions, toward Hakonegasaki, Machida and Hachioji. In January 2020 Tokyo Metropolis budgeted for moving the Hakonegasaki extension toward a project, and on 23 July 2024 the company applied under the Tramway Act. From the report to the permit: nine years. The sky road does not hurry.

“Space for the line.” To lay a road in the sky, there must first be a road on the ground to receive it. The extension work begins not with putting up girders, but with widening the highway. The Tama Monorail does not run over roads on a whim. It is a vehicle that uses the road on the ground as its foundation and stacks another road directly on top of it.

And here the mystery connects with the view outside the window. Read again that sentence from the company’s 2018 release: the Tama Monorail, running mainly on a high guideway above roads, passes through many sections with open views, and is known for having many spots from which Mt. Fuji can be seen. Above a road, nothing is blocked by buildings. It is precisely because it runs right above wide roads that the view opens up and you can see as far as distant Fuji. The reason the sky road runs above the roads was also, quite simply, the reason this ride has such good views.

Why does it have to be a road? The other half — the fine print of law and cost — I have not yet been able to write in my notebook. That is homework for my window seat on the next ride.

The answer to the quiz is B, 22 degrees. Twenty-five is the setting for cooling; heating is lower. Obvious once you know, a trap if you don’t.

From the middle of a town its own people call “a place with nothing in it,” a road in the sky with views of Fuji stretches 16.0 kilometres north and south across Tama. And its starting point was Tachikawa.

From Shinjuku on the Chuo Line, or from Kawasaki on the Nambu Line, you reach Tachikawa with no change of trains. Switch there to the sky road, and on a winter evening the sun sets on the summit of Fuji. Some time around this year’s winter solstice, come and claim a window seat.

Before You Go

• Getting to Tachikawa: from central Tokyo, take the JR Chuo Line from Shinjuku to Tachikawa with no change of trains. From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki and Tachikawa (35.5 km) with no change. From the Yokohama area you can also take the Yokohama Line to Hachioji and change to the Chuo Line. Check timetables and journey times on JR East’s official site.
• The monorail stations: Tachikawa-Kita is the connecting station on the north side of JR Tachikawa Station, Tachikawa-Minami on the south side. Tachikawa-Kita has two ticket gates, “JR Tachikawa Station side” and “Showa Kinen Park side,” and there are lifts between street level and the gates. An IC card such as Suica or PASMO saves buying a ticket for every ride.
• Journey times from Tachikawa-Kita (company fare and time table): Tachikawa-Minami 1 min, Shibasaki-Taiikukan 3, Koshu-Kaido 6, Manganji 8, Takahata-Fudo 11, Tama-Dobutsukoen 15, Tama Center 23. Northbound: Takamatsu 3, Tachihi 4, Kamikitadai 13.
• For Mt. Fuji: sit by the west-facing windows — the right side heading south (toward Tama Center), the left side heading north (toward Kamikitadai). Clear winter days are best.
• Diamond Fuji: for about two and a half months around the winter solstice, between Tama Center Station and the area around Tachikawa-Minami. The day-by-day location and time are posted on the company’s special page each year. To watch from the platforms of Manganji, Koshu-Kaido or Shibasaki-Taiikukan, you need a platform ticket.
• Spring: the tunnel of cherry trees around Izumi-Taiikukan Station, and the cherries of the Negawa Greenway near Shibasaki-Taiikukan Station.
• Combine with: from Shibasaki-Taiikukan, the Negawa Greenway and the Tama River; from Tachikawa-Kita, Showa Kinen Park (about eight minutes on foot) and the public art of Faret Tachikawa by the station; four minutes north, Tachihi Station and the Tachihi district. From Takamatsu, one stop north, it is a ten-minute walk to the Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum.
• Fares, timetables, service status and the Diamond Fuji page: check the official site for the latest, https://www.tama-monorail.co.jp/
• Manners: if you watch the sunset from a platform, stay behind the platform doors and leave room for passengers getting on and off.

After the Ride, Unwind at Tachikawa Station North Exit

A monorail trip uses your body more than you would think. Up and down the station stairs, standing at the window waiting for the sunset, being blown about by the wind on a winter riverbank. When a body that has been gliding through the air returns to the ground, the heaviness in the legs and the stiffness in the shoulders creep up afterwards.

Come down from Tachikawa-Kita Station to street level and head for the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station. One minute’s walk from there, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a lava-stone hot yoga studio. It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, so even after you have seen Fuji off from the monorail, you are still in time.

The studio floor is laid with lava-stone plates, and hot yoga is practised on top of them. It also offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

For first-timers there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat to rent included, so you can drop in with nothing but yourself. 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.

At the end of a day spent riding the road in the sky and back, you count your breaths slowly, close to the ground. That too is one way to walk the town of Tachikawa.

• On the Shore: https://ontheshore.jp/
• Book a trial lesson: https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp

The sun that set outside the window will set again tomorrow on the same mountain, a little further along.

Cover photo: The Tama Monorail running over the Tachihi Bridge, a second road in the sky above the roadway (Photo: Tx-re / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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