The Tokyu Setagaya Line, a sweet little tramline, makes stops between Sangenjaya and Shimotakaido stations. A mere 5.1 kilometers long and one of only two trams left in Tokyo (the other being the Toden Arakawa Line), the Setagaya Line boasts a sleek fleet in candy colors. I hop onto a cherry red one headed toward Sangenjaya.
When the tram pulls into Miyanosaka Station, I spy from the tram window a green vintage-train carriage basking in the sun along the west platform like a Brobdingnagian grasshopper. I disembark to get a closer look. The station is unmanned and the carriage turns out to be locked, but peering though a passenger window, I can make out worn wooden floorboards and velvet seats the color of a billiard table. From a signboard, I learn this conveyance dates from 1925. It first ran the rails in Setagaya and then was sent south to join the Enoden fleet in Kamakura where it carried passengers to Enoshima until 1990.
There's something charming about a town that cherishes its retired train cars, I think, and I find it fitting that the carriage is parked in front of Miyanosaka's Silver Center for the elderly.