Horse-drawn trolley, Nihonbashi, c. 1900
“The first streetcars, referred to as a ‘horse trolleys without the horse’ (uma no nai basha), could hold up to forty people, sixteen seated and the rest standing. Like trains, they were rickety and made of wood. They had ten spaces for windows on both sides, poles for passengers to grasp for stability, and interior lights. Service started at 6:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m. Ginza) and lasted up until 1:00 a.m., and male transport workers were stationed at each stop to help control the crowds that gathered.
“All of the former horse-bus routes were electrified by 1904, and streetcar service was extended throughout the center of the city, connecting Shimbashi Station and such flourishing entertainment and commercials areas such as Ginza, Ueno Park, and Asakusa.
“… [T]hree streetcar companies – Tokyo densha tetsudo, Tokyo shigai tetsudo (nicknamed ‘Gaitetsu’), and Tokyo denki tetsudo (better known as the Sotobori line) – provided a network of trams that wove through the center of Tokyo. Each company’s streetcars were painted a different color … For example, Gaitetsu cars, which served areas as far west as Shinjuku, were green … The Sotobori streetcars had large glass-plate windows, luxuries many people had not seen before.
“These lines were consolidated into the Tokyo Railway Company (Tokyo tetsudo kaisah) on September 11, 1906, the year the nationalization of railways became law … Reasons for the streetcar merger included the public’s confusion about routes and the need to standardize schedules.”
– Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road, by Alisa Freedman, 2011
At its peak in the 1930s, the Toden system boasted 41 routes with 213 kilometers of track. In the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, city planners had already begun to place more emphasis on vehicular bus service (principally because of the expensive repairs to track and tram wires needed after the earthquake). And, in the postwar era, the increase in automobile traffic resulted in steep reductions in ridership. From 1967 to 1972, 181 km of track were abandoned.