I visited Umishibaura Station 3 years and a half to the day since 2011. It still keeps a fantastic surrounding in the urban area.
Umishibaura... where is it? It is a small terminal on the Umishibaura Branch Line of the JR East Tsurumi Line. It is just a local line in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but what this station makes famous is its location. The platform is situated on the coast. So, you can get a fine view of Tokyo Bay including the elegantly styled Tsurumi Tsubasa Bridge on the Tokyo Bay Highway.
As I introduced previously, the function of Umishibaura Station is to commute people who work for Toshiba Keihin Factory. So, we see trains frequently during rush hour; however, trains are operated only once every two hours in the weekend. Passengers, who aren't Toshiba employees, cannot exit the station, because it is located within the Toshiba private site. Instead of this restriction, Toshiba kindly provides the public with a lovely small park adjacent to the platform.
I stayed two hours on the platform to shoot an incoming train, the EMU 205-1100 series with blue water. It was a sunny afternoon, but very cold as the strong north wind passed through this scenic platform. I saw two more rail fans on the platform like me. Rail fans are indeed curiosity seekers, aren't they?
For your information, the Umishibaura Branch Line is a 1.7 km long single track route connecting Asano on the Tsurumi (main) Line and Umishibaura Terminal.
