History
The Musashino Line was initially envisioned as a "Tokyo Outer Loop Line" in a 1927 railway appropriations bill, but was not built for several decades due to World War II and its aftermath. Construction finally began in 1964.
In 1967, a train carrying jet fuel to Tachikawa Air Base in western Tokyo exploded while passing through Shinjuku Station. This disaster led to the banning of freight trains on railway lines in central Tokyo and sped the development of the Musashino Line as an alternative route. Because most of the line passed through sparsely populated areas, it was initially envisioned as a freight-only line: however, opposition from local residents, at the same time as the violent landowner battles plaguing Narita International Airport, led the railway authorities to agree to passenger service as well.
The northern portion of the line (Fuchū to Funabashi) was completed in 1973; the southern freight-only portion (Fuchū to Tsurumi) was completed in 1976. The line remains in use for transporting US military jet fuel from Yokohama to west Tokyo, among other purposes.
Read more about this topic: Musashino Line
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)