June 12, 1872, marked a significant milestone in Japan’s transportation history: the opening of Japan’s first train station, Shinagawa Station, in Tokyo. Japan’s first-ever train journey ran from Shinagawa to Yokohama, four months before the inauguration of “Japan’s first railway” which ran from Shimbashi to Yokohama via Shinagawa.
The development of the first stations and railway unfolded during a period of significant change in Japan, following the end of isolationist policies in 1854 and the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which prompted the rapid embrace of foreign technologies, including the railways themselves. The Tokyo-Yokohama line, upon its opening, garnered immense popularity, setting into (loco)motion Japan’s evolution into a pioneering railway nation.
The original Shinagawa Station, then located 300 meters south of its current position, featured a modest one-story wood frame building and provided travelers with a glimpse of the adjacent Tokyo Bay. While no remnants of this original structure exist today, its legacy lives on since Japan is home to the world’s 10 busiest train stations, the modern Shinagawa and Yokohama stations ranking ninth and fifth, respectively.
A tile on Shinagawa Station’s JR Platform 1 identifies it as “the birthplace of railways” and, adding a touch of cinematic history unofficially marks Godzilla’s first appearance in Japan with a dinosaur-esque figure and a path of familiar footprints. In the massive monster’s first appearance, Godzilla (1954), the iconic kaiju first sets foot on the Japanese mainland in Shinagawa. After rising from the depths of Tokyo Bay, Godzilla attacks several trains at Shinagawa Station before destroying the nearby Yatsuyama Bridge, the first of countless sites destroyed over the monster’s 70-plus-year history.
