The is a railway line in

Fukushima Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,771,100 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miyagi Prefecture and Yamagata Prefecture ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

operated by

East Japan Railway Company The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and 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 in ...

(JR East). It connects Iwaki Station in Iwaki and Kōriyama Station in

Kōriyama is a city in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 321,938 people in 141760 households, and a population density of 425 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Kōriyama is designated as a core city and ...

. The name "Ban'etsu" is taken from the first

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...

of the names of the ancient

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

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 The , with a length of , is the second longest river in the Tōhoku region of Japan and the 6th longest river in the country. It is designated as a Classification of rivers in Japan, Class A river. It runs through Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi P ...

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 or just is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ance ...

, 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 The Japanese Government Railways (JGR) was the national rail transport, railway system directly operated by the until 1949. It was a predecessor of Japanese National Railways and the later Japan Railways Group. Name The English name "Japanese ...

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