Keisei Higashi-Narita Line

The line was born out of the long, contentious project to build a new airport for the Tokyo region. In July 1966 the government decided to site the New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport) at Sanrizuka in Narita, and Keisei moved to provide rail access. The company applied for a local railway construction licence between Keisei Narita and an airport station in December 1968 and obtained it in November 1969. Construction began in November 1970, and although the railway's facilities were finished by rush work in November 1972 at a total cost of about 13.5 billion yen, the opening had to wait: fierce opposition to the airport itself — the events known as the Narita Airport Problem and the Sanrizuka Struggle — repeatedly delayed the airport's inauguration and with it the railway's.

The line finally opened on 21 May 1978, the day after the new airport opened and the day scheduled air service began. At that point the route was simply part of the Keisei Main Line, and it carried the railway's airport-access traffic, running from Keisei Narita to the first-generation Narita Airport Station. Because the airport terminal at the time stood some distance from the passenger terminals, the rail link was the centrepiece of Keisei's effort to connect central Tokyo with the new gateway, and from its opening it carried a surcharge fare added to the ordinary tariff.

The line's role changed sharply in 1991. Land that had been reserved for the abandoned Narita Shinkansen project was used to build a new line right up to the airport's passenger terminals, and on 19 March 1991 the Narita Airport Rapid Railway section between Komaino Signal Box and a new, second-generation Narita Airport Station opened as part of the Main Line. The first-generation Narita Airport Station was renamed Higashi-Narita, and the stretch from Keisei Narita to Higashi-Narita was redesignated the Higashi-Narita Line. From then on the new line, not the old one, served as the Main Line route to the airport. The actual junction with the Main Line is at Komaino Signal Box, so the Keisei Narita–Komaino segment — about 6.0 of the line's 7.1 km — is shared track belonging to both routes.

After the airport traffic moved away, the Higashi-Narita Line settled into the marginal position it holds today, and its name all but disappeared from public-facing information; Keisei's timetables and website generally treat it as a part of the Main Line rather than a line in its own right. Its ridership has remained weak — the line's operating coefficient exceeds 500, a figure that marks it as one of the least profitable lines among Japan's major private railways — and the surcharge fare set at its opening has recovered only a small fraction of its intended cost, just 9.1 percent as of the 2022 fiscal year, some forty-five years after opening.

A new purpose arrived in 2002. On 27 October that year the Shibayama Railway Line opened beyond Higashi-Narita, and the Higashi-Narita Line began through services with it, linking the new third-sector railway to the Keisei Main Line and the wider through-running network toward central Tokyo. On the Higashi-Narita Line itself Keisei remains a so-called Type 1 railway operator, owning the infrastructure and running the trains, unlike the arrangements on the airport extension and the later Narita Sky Access line.

Today the Higashi-Narita Line carries only a modest service, typically one to two trains an hour and around three at peak times, most of them running through to and from the Shibayama Railway. On 26 November 2022 Keisei introduced one-man (driver-only) operation on daytime trains, and the four-car services that had previously run only on weekdays began operating on holidays as well. Quiet and lightly used, the line survives as a historical artefact of the airport's difficult birth — the original rail approach to Narita, bypassed by the very airport traffic it was built to carry.

• 1966July: the government decides to build the New Tokyo International Airport (now Narita International Airport) at Sanrizuka in Narita.
• 1968December: Keisei applies for a local railway construction licence between Keisei Narita and the airport station.
• 1969November: Keisei obtains the construction licence for the Keisei Narita–airport line.
• 1970November: construction work begins.
• 1972November: the railway's facilities are completed by rush construction at a total cost of about 13.5 billion yen, but the opening is delayed by opposition to the airport.
• 197821 May: the Keisei Narita–Narita Airport Station (first generation) section opens, the day after the airport opens; at this stage it is part of the Keisei Main Line.
• 199119 March: the first-generation Narita Airport Station is renamed Higashi-Narita; with the new Main Line section (Komaino Signal Box–second-generation Narita Airport Station) opening on former Narita Shinkansen land, the Keisei Narita–Higashi-Narita stretch becomes the Higashi-Narita Line.
• 200227 October: the Shibayama Railway Line opens beyond Higashi-Narita, and the Higashi-Narita Line begins through services with it.
• 202226 November: one-man (driver-only) operation begins on daytime trains; four-car services previously run only on weekdays start running on holidays too.