Interesting Tidbits: The Tokyo Transit

Far more commonly used than the cars or the buses in Tokyo are the trains. The Tokyo subway system is efficient and expedient, and is easily used by several millions of people everyday. 
Many people outside of Japan have heard of the train packers in Tokyo, who stuff people into trains so that the doors will close. You'd be surprised how tightly people can pack themselves into a train without any help. I'll always remember the time when I first witnessed rush hour in Shinjuku station. The train doors opened to reveal a wall of people, a solid mass of writhing humanity. "Fitting in there would be impossible," I told myself, but then I saw it: a man stepped out from behind me, reached into the human wall, grabbed hold of a handle within the train, and pulled his body into the gibbering mass, pulverizing and twisting his body as he merged with the hive. The doors closed and the train left, and I thought I had witnessed a bizarre and unique form of suicide.
 At any rate, the train system took me quite a while to get used to at first. Here's a breakdown of it all: three major companies run the trains in Tokyo: they are Tokyo Metro Co, Japan Railways (JR), and the Governmental Bureau of Transportation (Toei.) Between the three of them combined, in the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area alone, the run 45 train/subway lines. FORTY. FIVE. LINES.

Go on, try to put that on your god damn shirt.

And that 45 doesn't count the private railways like the Nippori-Toneri liner and the Tsukuba Express. There are at least 20 of those, too.
 Adding to the confusion are two elements:
1: There are express trains that don't stop at every station. Oh, not just "express trains" mind you, there are those, and the "commuter express", "special express" and "limited express". That's four different types of express trains that stop at different stations. Better get on the right one.
2: Some trains shift lines after a certain point. Better know where you're going.
 That's about it in a nutshell. It took around two months for me to get used to it. See how well you can do.