Only prompt action by subway employees two months later prevented clouds of lethal cyanide gas from killing commuters at Tokyo's Shinjuku station.

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The Seibu Saison group of companies, of which Seiyu is the nucleus, owned track running from the Chichibu mountains west of Tokyo to Ikebukuro and Shinjuku in the city centre although the railway and the retailer parted company in the 1970s.

ECONOMIST: Japanese retailing

The hyper-efficient public transit system zips people around and between cities, with more than 300 bullet train departures daily between Tokyo and Osada and nearly 2 million commuters rushing each day through the busiest station, Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's most crowded commercial areas.

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