Tokyo Station Platform Roof To Be Replaced

Above, the Yamanote Line and the Tokyo Station platform roof, from a video I shot in 2004.

The East Japan Railway Company will be replacing a Tokyo Station platform roof for the first time since the station opened in 1914.

According to The Japan News:

A JR East official said the company decided that two of the 14 cast iron pillars holding up the roof will be preserved as a “monument” in recognition that the roof is a historic piece of architecture that survived the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the Great Tokyo Air Raid in 1945 during World War II. 

The roof covers the platform of tracks No. 5 and No. 6, used by Yamanote Line trains and Keihin Tohoku Line trains bound for Ofuna Station.

It is interesting that the roof withstood the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the Great Tokyo Air Raid of 1945.

To read more, go here.