Difference between revisions of "Misato Station"

美里站
Location	1552 ~ 31943
Owned by	Harmony Rail Transit (Lamtsu)
Operated by	Harmony Rail Transit (Lamtsu); Misato Rapid Transit Kabuki Kaisha (MRT Corp); Lamtsu Rapid Transit Kabuki Kaisha (LRT Corp);
Line(s)	Yamate Line ; Mihara Line ; Ome Line ; Namboku Line ; Sakuho Line ; Ome Heritage Line ; Vtuber Park Line (Up to 2022 February)
Platforms	13
Tracks	13
Connections	MRT Misato Station Misato Light Rail Stop
Structure Type	At-Grade+Elevated
Platform Levels	3
Disabled Access	No
Station Code	MS
Opened	30 June 1947 (Initial Opening) 1st May 2022 (Heritage Platforms) 30 June 2022 (Full Reopening)
Closed	31st Jan 2022 (Reconstruction)

Revision as of 16:53, 29 April 2022

Misato Station is a HRT (Lamtsu) station in Misato City, Lamtsu Capital City, Hon Kwong Province, Federation of Sorano. The Station was the most important station in the HRT Network in Lamtsu, being the primary terminus for long-distance lines to Joban and South-East Sorano. It was also the 3nd busiest Station in the Joban-Sorano Region, with more than 700,000 commuters using the station in June 2016. The station was closed for reconstruction after the HRT (Lamtsu) scandals that followed the 2022 Sora train wreck, with many of the Main Lines being rerouted away from the station and the Kansai Main Line being split off to the MRT Corporation.

General Information

Lines

More Lines can be found at MRT Misato Station across the street.

Station Layout

Misato Station is elevated above street level, on the second floor of the station complex. There are 8 exits, split between 2 concourses. Exits A through D are located on the concourse on the ground floor, and generally are used for normal entry and exit. These sets of gates are referred to as the Misato Gates by locals and staff, although they are officially referred to as the Ground Level Gates. Exits E through G are located on the Bridge Concourse, and the exit gates here are similarly named the Bridge gates. These sets of gates (excluding exit E) are usually used to transfer to the SMRT Station, be it for the Misato City Tram or the Kansai Main Line. The Sakuho Gates at exit H lead directly to the stairs for the Sakuho Line platforms. Officially part of SMRT Misato Station, this stop does not show up more than once on the MRT maps despite it stopping twice. Proposals have been made to expand the Bridge Concourse to a second platform level, to accommodate future North-South traffic with the proposed Lamtsu-Misato Line, which is a viaduct over the existing six-track section.

Platforms and Tracks are on the first floor. The initial plans called for 6 island platforms serving 12 tracks, but with the rerouting of the Vtuber Park Line to Kimotsuki, this was later reverted to 5. The previous Misato Station Public Carpark was demolished to make was for the Misato Central Mall, which is located on the left of the station. All platforms offer through services excluding the Ome Line platforms, which terminate here. A proposal has been made to build new tracks for the Ome Line using viaducts so that they could be straighter, from Misato to Mihara, to run express services.

Under Construction

The Lamtsu-Mihara Viaduct is the planned construction of a viaduct that would link the stations of Lamtsu, Misato and Mihara with newly built straight track that would facilitate limited express services from the north and south. The proposal was approved, abeit with slight modifications to the initial stage. The Ome Line will use the viaduct from Misato to Mihara in the first stage to run Ome Liner services at 160km/h, the fastest service in the region. No changes will be made to the existing Ome Line plans, which will utilise the old Misato Frieght Line tracks for the current plan.

Exits

A: Misato Central Mall
B: Misato Central Plaza
C: Misato High Street
D: Ome Railway Museum
E: Misato Central Mall Level 4
F: Opposite Misato Station
G: SMRT Misato Station
H: Sakuho Exit

Passenger Statistics

In 2020, 745,872 commuters used the station daily on average, making it the busiest station in the Harmony Rail Transit (Lamtsu) Network. It is estimated that this figure will decline significantly after the rebuild.

Passenger Statistics
Fiscal Year	Passenger Number
2013	687,109
2014	693,092
2015	699,867
2016	702,345
2017	713,298
2018	724,983
2019	737,182
2020	745,872
2021	752,127
2022 (projection)	503,198

Platforms

Harmony Rail Transit

The HRT platforms are all located on the first floor, with all of them being Island platforms. Escalator and Stair access is available, although Lifts for disabled access have been planned.

HRT Platforms

L1
1	Mihara Line (Express)	For Mihara
	Mihara Line (Suburban)	For Mihara, Hayakawa
	Limited Express "Joban Airport"	For Airport
2	Mihara Line (Express)	For Lamtsu, Yamate
2	Mihara Line (Suburban)	For Lamtsu
3	Mihara Line (Local)	For Sasaguri, Mihara, Tai Hing Forest
3	Mihara Line (Rapid)	For Mihara, Otaki, Hakone
4	Mihara Line (Local)	For Lamtsu
4	Mihara Line (Rapid)	For Lamtsu
5	Namboku Line	For Fukaaura, Hayakawa
5	Namboku Line (Ome Line Through Service)	For Hayakawa, Kusu
6	Namboku Line	For Lamtsu, Meguro
7	Yamate Line	Soto-Mawari for Nakagawa, Otaki, Lamtsu
8	Yamate Line	Uchi-Mawari for Lamtsu, Otaki, Hikawa
9	Ome Line	For Shirakao, Hayakawa, Kusu
	Ome Line (Rapid)	For Shirakao, Mihara, Hayakawa
	Limited Express "Hakone"	For Hakone
10	Ome Liner	For Hayakawa, Ome
	Limited Express "Tokiwa"	For Ome, Central South
	Shimakaze "Twilight Wind"	For Kyuru, Redhill

Limited Express Trains

For the Mihara Line

Limited Express Hakone (Misato-Hakone)

Limited Express Airport Joban (Lamtsu-Misato-Airport)

For the Ome Line

Commuter Limited Express Ome Liner (Misato-Mihara-Hayakawa-Ome)

Limited Express Tokiwa (Misato-Mihara-Ome-Central South)

Limited Express Shimakaze (Misato-Ome-Kyuru-Redhill)

Sunrise Yamagawa (See Article)

Misato Rapid Transit

The Sakuho Line platforms under Misato Station are located in the centre of the station.

MRT Platforms

B1
11	Sakuho Line for MRT Misato Station, Kamiyama
12	Sakuho Line for Moseushi

Adjacent Stations

Adjacent Stations for Misato Station
«	Service	»
	Mihara Line
Lamtsu	Mihara Line Local	Sasaguri
Lamtsu	Mihara Line Rapid	Tsuwano
Lamtsu	Mihara Line Express	Mihara
Lamtsu	Mihara Line Suburban	Mihara
Terminus	Limited Express Hakone	Hakone
Terminus	Limited Express Airport Joban	Airport
	Namboku Line
Kimotsuki	Namboku Line	Nyuzen
Kimotsuki	Namboku Line (Ome)	Nyuzen
	Yamate Line
Kimotsuki	Yamate Line	Hikawa
	Ome Line
Shirakao	Ome Line (Urban)	Terminus
Shirakao	Ome Line (Rapid)	Terminus
Terminus	Limited Express Ome Liner	Mihara
Terminus	Limited Express Tokiwa	Ome
Terminus	Limited Express Shimakaze	Ome
Tai Hing Forest	Sunrise Yamagawa	Mihara
	Sakuho Line
Moseushi	Sakuho Line	Goka

History and Technical Details

History

Conception

Misato Station was originally conceived as the terminus of the Yamate Line in 1946. However, pressure from the local government forced the extension of the Line to Hikawa, delaying its opening by a year. The original station was constructed at-grade, with the Yamate Line platforms adjacent to Misato Hill.

Further Expansion

With the opening of the Namboku Line in 1968 and the Completion of the Kujukuri-Sakuho Line in 1975, Misato Station replaced Lamtsu station as the de facto primary interchange. however, Misato City Railway maintained that Lamstu station was the main terminus, making it the de jure interchange and therefore received the bulk of the funding. This resulted in the infrastructure of Misato Station being very lacking.

Subsequent platforms were built on a separate station building and elevated, for the terminating 4-car lines on ground level. However, the lack of funding and the prohibitive land costs in Misato prompted the platform width to be reduced from the 10m standard on the Yamate Line to 5 metres for the elevated platforms. By 2015, Misato Station was severely overcrowded, with reports of suffocations due to lack of platform space being not uncommon. This was further exasperated due to the cross-platform transfers between the Mihara and Namboku lines, where crowds of passengers would often crush each other in an attempt to squeeze onto the trains. By this time, almost every line would pass through or terminate at Misato, excluding the Tozai Line and the Chuo Main Line. As the Chuo Main Line was built by HRT and not Misato City Railway (Now MRT), the Line was prohibited from cutting across the Yamate Line and the decision was made for it to terminate at Otaki, with some services continuing to Fukaaura.

2022 Sora Train Wreck

The 2022 Sora Train wreck was the worst train accident in all of Sorano, with 78 fatalities and more than 600 injured. The train involved was a Ome Liner limited express on the stretch between Sora and Misato.

Preliminary investigations show that the train was travelling at 120km/h over a 60km/h stretch, and as such the train derailed and broke apart while approaching the bend towards Misato station.

The driver was most likely trying to make up for lost time that had occurred when he overran the platform at Mihara, causing the train to be delayed by 5 minutes, and then delayed again because he was slowed down by a Vtuber Park Line Local train also travelling to Misato. The extremely old and curvy tracks on the lines in Lamtsu had been a severe issue for quite a while, with a 2018 report highly recommending the rebuilding of the old lines. However, these warnings were ignored and the speed limits on the lines were in some parts, cranked up all the way to 160km/h on what should have been a 100km section at the maximum.

The accident triggered an investigation that found HRT (Lamtsu) guilty of negligence and filed an antitrust lawsuit, splitting the company into 3. This also caused the 2022 Great Lamtsu Railway Rebuild, a period of 8 months without train service where the railways were being rebuilt.

2022 Misato Station Rebuild

In the aftermath of the Sora Train Wreck, HRT Lamtsu had a revision of the railroad doctrine, and the decision was made to spread out the terminals of the lines along the Yamate Line rather than concentrating them all along Misato station. The Vtuber Park Line was moved to Kimotsuki, and the Kansai Main Line was moved to MRT Misato station across the road. Tram operations also were moved to terminate at the new Misato Tram terminal.

Misato's old stone-brick design, while nostalgic, was not kept in the rebuild. Misato station was completely transformed from an overcrowded dinky station to a modern, futuristic station. The Engineer and Architect of the station was subsequently put in charge of the Lamtsu Railways. However, despite this amount of responsibility, he was still officially a minor employee and thus drew a very low salary, leading to accusations at HRT of Black Company behavior.

Platform Layout Pre-Reconstruction

B1
	21: Sakuho Line for Kamiyama (From the Kujukuri Line)→
	Island Platform (To Concourse)
	←22: Kujukuri Line for Tsubetsu (from the Sakuho Line)

G (Indoors)
	Side Platform
	1: Ome Line (Urban)
	2: Ome Line (Rapid)
	Island platform
	3: Ome Liner
	4: Ai Liner
	Island Platform
	5. Vtuber Park Line
	6. Kansai Main Line (Local)
	Island Platform
	7. Kansai Main Line (Rapid)
	8. Kansai Main Line (Express)
	Island Platform
	9. Kansai Main Line (Urban)
	10. Tohoku Liner
	Side Platform

G
	19. Yamate Line (Soto-Mawari)→
	Island Platform
	20. ←Yamate Line (Uchi-Mawari)

L1
	Side Platform
	11. Mihara Line for Hayakawa→
	12: Mihara Line for Tai Hing→
	Island Platform
	13. Namboku Line for Hayakawa→
	Island Platform
	14. Mihara Line for Mihara→
	←15. Mihara Line for Yamate
	Island Platform
	←16. Namboku Line for Meguro
	Island platform
	←17. Mihara Line for Lamtsu
	←18. Mihara Line for Lamtsu
	Side Platform (Connect to Yamate Line)

Design

Misato Station is a modernist style, with a huge roof covering 5 Island platforms, with the concourse at ground level. An elevated linkway above the platforms connects them directly to the opposite side of Misato High Street, as well as Misato Central Mall and MRT Misato station. On the map, the colour of the station is grey, but the colour scheme of the area is much more light-blue. The concourse preserves the older andesite grey colour scheme, while the floor of the concourse is a tiled pattern alternating Polished Diorite and Calcite. On the North-West of the station, there is a heritage area in the style of the old Misato Station for the heritage Ome Line. The Sakuho-Kujukuri Line platforms retain their old design.

The old Misato Station was very much brutalist architecture, with the station constructed of mostly Stone Brick, Andesite, and the occasional Iron Support.

Surrounding Area

Districts

Misato City

Sora

Buildings

Sora Railway Museum

Misato Central Mall

HRT Building

Misato Office Tower 1

Stations

Stations within walking distance are:

Misato Tram Stop

SMRT Misato Station

Sora Railway Station

Gallery

A shot of the last trains to arrive at Misato before the station was closed for rebuilding.

The last trains on the elevated platforms of Misato

Misato Station post-rebuilding