So. There's this gianormous concrete loop of a train track right outside of my fiancee's parents' house in Komaki. Simply huge, and high above ground. At the one side is a train station. An abandoned train station! And not just that station, but every station along those tracks. Yes, this particular train, the Peachliner, was the first "people mover" line to close its doors in Japan. At least so according to wikipedia!
Some excerpts from the wiki I found interesting, other than the almost over usage of the term people mover:
"In 1974, [the Peachliner] had a projected ridership of 43,000 ... The line was opened in March, 1991, but by this time the ridership projection had been cut to just 12,000 passengers per day... between 1991 and 2004 the line only averaged 2,670 passengers per day, amounting to only 6% of the original estimate."
"The maintenance of the line required some 11.5 billion yen per year, a tenth of Tokadai New Town's budget and, compared to construction costs of 31.3 billion yen, the equivalent of rebuilding the line from scratch every three years."
Talk about poor planning. And of course, this thing is mostly above ground, so the demolition costs to rip out all the concrete would be substantial, so there it will sit. For a long time. And I'll see it again.
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