A subway station (地下鉄道)

 "A subway station (地下鉄道), ca. 1930 ~ old postcard.

The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line was conceived by a businessman Noritsugu Hayakawa, who visited London in 1914, saw the London Underground and concluded that Tokyo needed its own underground railway. He founded the Tokyo Underground Railway (東京地下鉄道, Tōkyō Chikatetsudō) in 1920, and began construction in 1925. The first subway line in Tokyo between Ueno and Asakusa was opened in 1927 as a private railway. The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line (東京地下鉄銀座線, Tōkyō Chikatetsu Ginza-sen) is the oldest subway line in Asia. One of the last cars from the original 1000 series cars operated on the Tokyo Underground Railway between Ueno and Asakusa was retired in 1968. (Image: Tokyo Metropolitan Library)