Musashi-Yamato Station (RotW)

RotW is my Railways of the Warrior project. Visiting all the Japanese train stations with Fuji in the name & the 12 castles with the original keep still standing wasn’t enough to satisfy my love of lists, so now I’m working through all the stations with Musashi in their name.

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Name in kanji : 武蔵大和
Kanji meaning: ancient Japan; Japanese spirit
Station opened : 1930
Trainlines: Seibu Tamako
# Passengers daily : 7205
Distance from CityHillsAndSea HQ: 94km
Located in: Higashimurayama, Tokyo

Things to Do

The only real thing to do here is to visit the beautiful Sayama Park, and wander through that to get a good look out over Tama Lake, a reservoir formed by Sayama Dam.

All About Musashi-Yamato Station

Musashi-Yamato is out on the Seibu-Tamako line, a tiny little tributary of the main Seibu-Shinjuku line, that curves around to the south-east of the Seibu Dome – although I think naming rights mean it’s currently called the MetLife Dome.

As mentioned above, there’s not a whole lot out this direction. Having said that, the whole area is a busy little suburb out on the edges of Tokyo and I’d imagine it’s a pretty desirable location to live in.

On a beautifully sunny day like this one was, there were lots of locals out sunning themselves on the grass. Plenty of kids riding bikes. A few serious photographers out ogling ornithological specimens. (One hopes.)

Just the usual park things.

Yet, despite all the people, the park never really felt crowded and there are some beautiful little quieter spots to sit down and just soak up nature:

I wondered if this was the result of pandemic induced distance keeping paranoia, or if people in this park were typically just pretty chill; then I decided I didn’t really care, kicked back, and enjoyed the view.

Station Rating

It’s a pretty part of the world, although artificial reservoirs don’t quite make it the whole way up the beauty scale to picturesque. Then again, if you get lucky with the weather, you should be able to see Mount Fuji in the distance. That helps.

Since Musashi-Yamato is right next door to Sayama Dam, and the other side of Sayama Dam takes you to Musashi-Fujisawa – I’m considering this one a double. I’ve already been to Musashi-Fujisawa …

(NARRATOR: formerly on City Hills and Sea)

… so I don’t really think it needs visited again. Even if it was the catalyst for this new daft list… !