AFP photographer Richard A. Brooks photographed the Yamanote's 30 stations in June -- a different one every day -- capturing the hustle and bustle at the heart of the world's biggest urban area.
The elevated tracks loop around the centre of the Japanese metropolis in 60 minutes, connecting the main commercial, transport and tourist areas including the stations of Shinjuku, Shibuya and Tokyo.
Trains depart every two to four minutes, trundling clockwise and counter-clockwise -- "sotomawari" and "uchi-mawari" -- taking "salarymen" to offices, kids to baseball practice and lonely pensioners nowhere in particular.
Twenty-eight of the stations have safety platform doors, the first ones installed in 2011 after a visually impaired traveller fell onto the tracks.
