Illustration of a Steam Locomotive Passing Shiodome in Tokyo (Tōkyō Shiodome tetsudō jōkisha tsūkō zu)

Illustration of a Steam Locomotive Passing Shiodome in Tokyo (Tōkyō Shiodome tetsudō jōkisha tsūkō zu) is an 1872 [triptych](/glossary/triptych) of woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniteru in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession JP3347). The print depicts the Tokyo terminus of Japan's first steam railway at Shimbashi station, on the site of the former Shiodome daimyō residences just south of Edo Castle. The new railway, opened in October 1872 (Meiji 5), reorganized the southern approaches to the capital around its trunk-rail infrastructure, and the area around Shimbashi/Shiodome was rebuilt as a quasi-Western district of brick buildings, gas lamps, and railway sheds. Kuniteru's triptych captures the new mode of urban movement: a locomotive pulling brightly painted carriages past Western-style buildings, with spectators in mixed Japanese and Western dress along the platform and on the surrounding streets. As one of the earliest dated images of the Shimbashi terminus — produced within months of the railway's opening — the print is an important visual record of the actual appearance of Meiji Tokyo's first piece of imported transport infrastructure. It also exemplifies the rapid response of the Edo woodblock print trade to topical news subjects, a tradition Kuniteru carried from late-Edo [Yokohama-e](/glossary/yokohama-e) into the Meiji era.