Saturday, 1 April 2017

Sky Garden on the Den-en-toshi Line

EMU Tokyu 5000 series travels on the Den-en-toshi Line

It looks just like an ordinary public garden in front of a high-rise apartment at a glance, but visitors may feel that something is strange. The park is in the shape of a spiral. What is it?

It is Meguro Sky Garden constructed just above a junction of expressways. This unique garden was opened in 2013, when the Ohashi Junction of the Metropolitan Expressway was constructed at the intersection of Route 3 and the Central Circular Route. It was a difficult task to construct the junction, because Route 3 was an elevated road on a hill, while Central Circular Route was a deep underground road beneath low-lying ground. As a result, long spiral (going around and around) connection lanes had to be constructed between two expressways at this junction. That's why Meguro Sky Garden is also spiral-shaped.

You can't enter Meguro Sky Garden directly from the expressways. I recommend you visit there by train. The nearest station is Ikejiri-Ohashi on the Tokyu Den-en-toshi Line. Ikejiri-Ohashi is an underground station above the Central Circular Route of the Metropolitan Expressway, which is also underground. What a complicated structure it is! One of the fleet on the line is the EMU 5000 series launched in 2002. It is a brother of the EMU 5050 series operated on the Toyoko Line and the 5080 series on the Meguro Line. Furthermore, the EMU Y500 series of the Yokohama Minato Mirai Railway has also the same specification with the 5050 series. They are a big family, aren't they?

Meguro Sky Garden near Ikejiri-Ohashi Station on the Den-en-toshi Line

Official information about Meguro Sky Garden: