The is a railway line in

Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Prefecture (; ja, 福島県, Fukushima-ken, ) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,810,286 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miya ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

operated by

East Japan Railway Company The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

(JR East). It connects Iwaki Station in Iwaki and Kōriyama Station in Kōriyama. The name "Ban'etsu" is taken from the first characters of the names of the ancient provinces of and , which the Ban'etsu East and Ban'etsu West lines connect. means "east" in Japanese. The line's nickname is the , taken from the Abukuma River that flows nearby.

Service

All trains are operated as local services in 2-, 3-, or 5-car formations. Service between Kōriyama and Ononiimachi is provided once every 30 minutes to two hours, but between Ononiimachi and Iwaki, there is a period of five hours where no trains operate. One reason for the few continuous services between Iwaki and Kōriyama is the opening of the parallel Ban-etsu Expressway in 1995; as a result, most long distance passengers use highway bus services. The last express service, ''Iwaki'', stopped running in 1982. During peak holiday periods such as Golden Week, Obon, and New Year, the rapid ''Abukuma'' makes a single round trip with a 2-car train.

Station list

*All stations are located in

. * Trains can pass one another at stations marked "◇", "∨", or "∧". Trains cannot pass at stations marked "｜".

Rolling stock

As of February 2009, the following rolling stock is used on the East Ban'etsu Line. * KiHa 110 series DMUs

History

The line was planned by the Railway Construction Act in 1892. The Japanese Government Railways opened the first section as the between Koriyama and Miharu in 1914. The Iwaki - Ogawagō opened in 1915 as the , the same year Miharu - Ononiimachi section opened. When the two sections were connected in 1917, the line became the Ban'etsu East Line. Freight services ceased in 1987.

References

External links

Stations of the Ban'etsu East Line
(JR East) {{DEFAULTSORT:Banetsu East Line Lines of East Japan Railway Company Rail transport in Fukushima Prefecture 1067 mm gauge railways in Japan Railway lines opened in 1915