History
Ōokayama Station opened on 11 March 1923 as a stop on the Meguro-Kamata Electric Railway, predecessor of today’s Tokyu Meguro Line, on the border of Ōta and Meguro wards in Tokyo. The Oimachi Line platforms were added on 6 July 1927. An ambitious rebuild began on 16 October 1990 and progressively moved both lines underground between 1996 and June 1997, eliminating multiple level crossings and converting the elevated and surface station into an underground two-island, four-track facility. The redesign opened on 27 June 1997, and on 6 August 2000 the Mekama Line was split into the Meguro Line and Tokyu-Tamagawa Line, leaving Ōokayama as a junction of the Meguro and Oimachi lines. On 3 November 2007 the rebuilt Tokyu Hospital opened directly above the station — reportedly the first Japanese instance of a hospital sited on top of a working railway station.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
When the Tokyu Hospital was rebuilt directly atop the underground station in 2007, the line beneath was retrofitted during the 1990s rebuild with coil springs under the rails to damp vibration from passing trains, making it reportedly the first Japanese hospital placed over a working railway station.