The Yokohama Municipal Subway Blue Line is a rapid transit line serving Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is the longer of the two lines in the Yokohama Municipal Subway system operated by Yokohama City Transportation Bureau, and is the second-longest subway line in Japan at in length, surpassed only by the long Toei Oedo Line in Tokyo. The Blue Line is divided into two operating segments: Line 3 from in Aoba-ku, Yokohama to, and Line 1 from Kannai to in Fujisawa. Local and rapid services operate continuously on both lines 1 and 3 as a single service. Following the opening of the Green Line on 30 March 2008, the line was nicknamed the "Blue Line". The line color is blue and the line symbol used in the station numbering is B.
Operations
Rapid
Rapid trains stop at all stations from Shonandai to Totsuka, and from Nippa to Azamino. Between Totsuka and Nippa, they stop at Kaminagaya, Kamiooka, Kannai, Sakuragicho, Yokohama, and Shin-Yokohama. Rapid services began operating on 18 July 2015.
Local
During the daytime, there are two trains that direct the Shonandai station-Azamino station between 30 minutes, Odoriba Station-Azamino station and the Shonandai station-Nippa station, each of which is operated by one. About the interval train to the Odoriba station is usually the meeting of the fast at the Kaminagaya station, usually at the Nippa station departure and take the rapid connection with the Nippa station of the first train terminal. There are a lot of Azamino trains which depart from the Nippa station and Kaminagaya station with the garage mainly in the early morning and midnight although the whole train becomes usual time zone excluding daytime, and many trains drive directly between the station-Shonandai station. Moreover, there is one connected to Shonandai at the Nagatani station on the end of the terminal by the train which goes to Nagatani on a weekday, six on a Saturday holiday, and the Azamino departure. Although Blue is mainly used in the direction curtain display of the vehicle and the guidance of the station campus, it is not necessarily united in case of green.
, the line is operated using a fleet of 37 six-car 3000 series EMUs based at Kaminagaya Depot. The fleet is subdivided into eight first-batch 3000A series sets, seven-second-batch 3000N series sets, fourteen third-batch 3000R series sets, and eight fourth-batch 3000S series sets. A fifth-batch 3000 V series six-car set entered service on the line on April 9, 2017, with a total of seven sets scheduled to be introduced by 2022, replacing the earlier 3000A series trainsets.
In 1965, construction of Line 1 and Line 3 began. The subway was inaugurated on 16 September 1972, when the 5.2 km long initial section of Line 1 opened between Kami-Ōoka and Isezakichōjamachi stations. On 4 September 1976, Line 1 was extended in both directions: 2.8 km and 2 stations to the southwest, and 0.7 km and 1 station to the north ; the 2.8 km long initial section of Line 3 between Kannai and Yokohama also opened that same day and through services between Line 1 and Line 3 began. On 14 March 1985, two extensions opened: a 7.0 km, 5 station extension of Line 3 from Yokohama to Shin-Yokohama, and a 2.0 km, 2 station extension of Line 1 from Kaminagaya to Maioka. Line 1 would be extended by one station to Totsuka on 27 August 1989; a temporary station was in operation at that location from 24 May 1987 until that date. The most recent extension of Line 3, a 10.9 km section from Shin-Yokohama to Azamino opened on 18 March 1993. The final 7.4 km section of Line 1 from Totsuka to Shōnandai opened on 28 August 1999. From July 2015, limited-stop "Rapid" services were introduced on the line, with approximately two services operating per hour during the daytime off-peak. Journey times over the entire length of the line were reduced by up to 10 minutes from the 1 hour 7 minutes taken by all-stations services. From 4 March 2017, the intervals between rapid trains was decreased to 20 minutes
