Musashi-Shiraishi (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.

Click this link for more info.

Name in kanji : 武蔵白石
Kanji meaning: white rock
Station opened : 10th March, 1926
Trainlines: JR Tsurumi Line
# Passengers daily : 1500
Distance from CityHillsAndSea HQ: 44km
Located in: Kawasaki Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture

Things to Do

erm, there’s a Korean barbecue place just down the road?

I thought there might be some good oppoortunities for some good old-fashioned 工場萌え (those photos of factories that are, for some reason, breathtakingly beautiful) but even that was a bust.

Your best bet? If you’re dead set on visiting Musashi stations, pop down to Musashi-Shiraishi and then head on down to Umi-Shibaura station. It’s much less dull owing to a pretty funky quirk… about which, more below.

All About Musashi Shiraishi Station

Musashi Shiraishi is way down on the south side of Kawasaki, in a (mostly) industrial area. It’s a station on the Tsurumi line, which – surprise surprise – starts at Tsurumi station. It’s a funny line – it branches off in 3 separate directions, and Musashi Shiraishi is on the main line.

Originally built to serve factories and the port down that way, the line winds its way through various stations that, by and large, sit in the shadow of factories, warehouses and other testaments to the perpetually productive bent of the human spirit.

In the cold rain, Musashi Shiraishi didn’t really hit any inspirational nor aspirational notes for me. I doubt very much if that would be different on a sunny day – it’s been recently rebuilt, by the looks of things and there’s therefore an appealing modern vibe to the station building… but that’s kind of it.

So what to do to make the trip worthwhile? Well, You’d be much better off doubling back on yourself and heading to Umi-Shibaura station instead.

Umi-Shibaura station is actually quite a popular destination (see poster above) because of the little quirk I mentioned earlier: you cannot leave the station.

This station serves a Toshiba facility and the ticket gates open right into the grounds. In fact, JR, the operators of the Tsurumi line, actually lease the land for the station from Toshiba. This means that you can’t actually leave the station unless you work for Toshiba.

The station has great views of the Tsurumi Tsubasa bridge, a steel mill, a refinery or two, the aforementioned Toshiba factory and the ocean.

But let’s be honest, the oddity of getting off a train and not being able to leave a station is worth the price of a ticket alone, is it not?

(You can see a lot more about this funky little station in a very cool video by PLAY TOKYO over at YouTube.)

Station Rating

I feel a bit mean giving poor old Musashi Shiraishi such a low score, but honestly, it’s a station. It’s the purest form of station – not a destination in itself, but a place that allows people to get to places nearby from other places that aren’t. Unfortunately, this means it’s pretty dull.