Who would have thought that something that chases its tail all day for a living could be so incredibly important to the workings of a major metropolis?
OK, so Tokyo's humble Yamanote Line, whose pea-green, 11-car trains link 29 stations over a looping route of 34.5 km, may not have the glamour of Japan's world-famous shinkansen bullet trains, or the allure of the Romance Car as it heads off to the hills and hot springs in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Yet for sheer, hardworking utility, astounding punctuality and frequency and the connections it makes with other rail routes, there's nothing to compare with East Japan Railway Company's Yamanote Line.
All of which means that the Yamanote Line -- with its cushioned seats a New Yorker would die for and wide, spacious carriages a Londoner could only dream of -- is an icon of public transportation the world over. Day in and day out, it serves as the key transport artery for the greater Tokyo conurbation and its 20-odd million inhabitants.