Tokyo Trains And Trams. Spend any length of time in Tokyo and you'll become very familiar with the JR Yamanote train line that loops around the city centre . Other useful JR train routes include the Chuo line (orange), which starts at Tokyo Station and runs west to Shinjuku and the suburbs beyond to terminate beside the mountains at Takao - the rapid services (look for the red kanji characters on the side of the train) miss out on some stations. The yellow Sobu line goes from Chiba in the east to Mitaka in the west, and runs parallel to the Chuo line in the centre of Tokyo, doubling as a local service, stopping at all stations. The Keihin Tohoku line , with blue trains, runs from Omiya in the north, through Tokyo Station, to Yokohama and beyond. It's fine to transfer between JR lines on the same ticket, but you must buy a new ticket if you transfer to a subway line.
As on the subway, tickets are bought from vending machines. The lowest fare on JR lines is ¥130. Like the subways, JR offers pre-paid cards and kaisuken (carnet) deals on tickets. The pre-paid Orange Card (not always orange, just to confuse things) comes in denominations of ¥1000, ¥3000, ¥5000 (worth ¥5300) and ¥10,000 (worth ¥10,700), and is available from station vending machines. The card must be re-inserted into the same vending machines to pay for individual tickets (the price is deducted from the value of the card), but can be used on the JR system anywhere in Japan.
Central Tokyo's last remaining tram service, the Toden Arakawa line, loops round from Waseda in the northwest to Minowa, above Asakusa, on the northeast. Though not a particularly useful route for visitors, it passes through some interesting backstreets, especially between Higashi-Ikebukuro and Koshinzuka. There's a flat fare of ¥160, paid on entry, and stations are announced in English. Trams run from around 6am to 10pm.