Classic route
Jōban Line
Tokyo → Sendai · Japan
Jōban Line in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 364 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 4 h 40 min
- Average speed
- 78 km/h
- Train
- Limited Express Hitachi
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 1905
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Tokyo to Sendai up the Pacific coast, inland of the Shinkansen: complete on 1 April 1905, and reopened right through Fukushima in March 2020 after nine years shut.
The Jōban Line officially runs from Nippori in Tokyo to Iwanuma in Miyagi, but since the Ueno–Tokyo Line opened its trains start at Shinagawa or Ueno and carry on past Iwanuma over Tōhoku Main Line rails into Sendai. The name comes from the old provinces of Jōshū and Banshū, which it strings together on the way to Tokyo, and the route follows the Pacific coast through Chiba, Ibaraki and Fukushima. The section between Tomioka and Namie runs through the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and was shut after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami; it reopened on 14 March 2020, nine years without a train.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 8506269 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 7 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR East — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Ueno
- The Pacific coast of Ibaraki
- Tomioka
- The Fukushima Daiichi exclusion zone
- Namie
- Iwanuma, onto the Tōhoku Main Line
How long is the Jōban Line?
The Jōban Line runs 364 km from Tokyo to Sendai.
How long does the Jōban Line take?
The fastest scheduled journey is ≈ 4 h 40 min for the 364 km. That is an average of 78 km/h end to end.
Who runs the Jōban Line?
JR East, with Limited Express Hitachi.
How old is the Jōban Line?
The line has been in service since 1905. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
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