is a passenger

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

located in the city of Nagahama,

Shiga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...

, Japan, operated by

West Japan Railway Company , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and ...

(JR West).

Lines

Nagahama Station is served by the

Hokuriku Main Line The Hokuriku Main Line ( ja, 北陸本線, ) is a 176.6 kilometer railway line owned by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) connecting the Maibara Station in Maibara, Shiga, with the Naoetsu Station in Joetsu, Niigata. The section betwe ...

, and is 7.7 kilometers from the terminus of the line at . Between 1991 and 2006, the station was the dividing point of electrification systems (south of the station, including the station, was 1500 V DC and north was 20,000 V AC) so that all regional trains from Osaka and Kyoto using DC-only

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

s terminated at this station. In 2006 the DC zone was extended to

Tsuruga Station is a railway station in the city of Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West). It is served by the Hokuriku Main Line and the Obama Line. A freight-only branch Line known as the Tsuruga Port Line operated by JR Frei ...

, but there still exist some terminating trains at Nagahama.

Station layout

The station consists of one

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...

and one

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on ...

with an elevated station building located above the platforms. The island platform has a cut-out, allowing part of the platform to serve an additional track. The station has a ''

Midori no Madoguchi , which stands for ''Multi Access (originally Magnetic-electronic Automatic) seat Reservation System'', is a train ticket reservation system used by the railway companies of former Japanese National Railways, currently Japan Railways Group (JR Grou ...

'' staffed ticket office.

Platforms

History

Nagahama Station opened on March 10, 1882 under the

Japanese Government Railway The Japanese Government Railways (JGR) was the national railway system directly operated by the Japanese Ministry of Railways ( ja, 鉄道省, Tetsudō-shō, ) until 1949. It was a predecessor of Japanese National Railways and the later Japan Rai ...

(JGR). At the time it was the terminal of the railway between Nagahama and . The station became an intermediate station when railway was extended from Nagahama to on May 1, 1883. The route to Sekigahara was later replaced by the route to . Until 1889 when the

Tōkaidō Main Line The is a major Japanese railway line of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) network, connecting and stations. It is long, not counting its many freight feeder lines around the major cities. The high-speed Tōkaidō Shinkansen largely parallel ...

was completed by the opening of the last section in Shiga Prefecture, Nagahama was a connection point of the railway and the boat on the Biwa Lake which fulfilled the gap of the railways east and west of the lake. The original station, built 1882, is now preserved as a museum (The Old Nagahama Station Museum), and is the oldest preserved railroad station in Japan. The station came under the aegis of the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) on 1 April 1987 due to the privatization of JNR. .

Passenger statistics

In fiscal 2019, the station was used by an average of 4391 passengers daily (boarding passengers only).

Gallery

File:Nagahama-Station-ticket-gate2020.jpg, Wicket gate, October 2020 Nagahama-Station-west-building2020.jpg, West exit, October 2020 File:Nagahama-Station-South-building2020.jpg, South exit, October 2020 File:Nagahama-Station-First-building2020.jpg, Original Station Building（now a museum）

Surrounding area

*Nagahama City Office *Nagahama Castle (Nagahama Castle Historical Museum) * Nagahama Port

References

External links

Nagahama Station (JR Odekake Net)
{{Hokuriku Main Line Railway stations in Shiga Prefecture Railway stations in Japan opened in 1882 Hokuriku Main Line Nagahama, Shiga