Akihabara Station (秋葉原駅) is run by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), and Tokyo Metro and the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company run their own stations here. It serves the Hibiya Line, Yamanote Line, Chūō–Sōbu Line (Local), Keihin–Tōhoku Line and Tsukuba Express (TX), and it opened on 1 November 1890.
History
Akihabara Station (秋葉原駅) opened on 1 November 1890 as a freight handling facility of the Nippon Railway. On 1 May 1893 a boat basin was completed, and the station began to connect with water transport. The railway was nationalized under the Railway Nationalization Act on 1 November 1906. On 12 October 1909 the line became part of the Tōhoku Main Line.
On 1 September 1923 the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed the station building and other facilities by fire. On 1 November 1925 the elevated line between Ueno and Tokyo opened and passenger services began. On 1 April 1928 the freight loading facility on the west side of the elevated freight station was completed. Ground-level freight handling ended, and the ground freight line to Ueno was also abolished. On 10 April 1931 the east-side freight loading facility was completed, and the temporary elevated freight equipment was abolished. On 1 October 1931 a freight warehouse opened under the elevated structure. On 1 July 1932 the Sōbu Main Line section between Ochanomizu and Ryōgoku opened, and the station became a transfer station. It became a three-layer elevated station, and its escalators were the first installed by Japanese National Railways.
On 10 March 1945 the Tokyo air raid burned down the station building. 14 passenger cars and 50 freight cars that were stored at the station were also lost in the fire. On 15 November 1951 Akiba Department Store opened at the current Electric Town exit. On 19 November 1956 the Yamanote Line and Keihin-Tōhoku Line began running separately, and each line used one side of the two platforms. On 31 May 1962 the Hibiya Line station of the Teito Rapid Transit Authority opened. On 1 December 1965 an escalator between the Shōwa-dōri entrance and the Sōbu Line local platform was installed, which was then Japan's longest. On 1 April 1974 general cargo handling was abolished, and only vegetables, pickles and fruit from the Kanda market were still handled. On 1 February 1975 freight operations were abolished.
On 1 April 1987 the station became a JR East station. On 13 March 1988 the Keihin-Tōhoku Line began daytime rapid service, and Akihabara became a rapid stop. On 1 December 1990 JR East installed automatic ticket gates at its Electric Town exit. On 5 November 1992 automatic ticket gates were installed at the Shōwa-dōri entrance. On 18 November 2001 Suica became usable on JR East. On 1 April 2004 the Hibiya Line stations were inherited by Tokyo Metro, with the privatization of the Teito Rapid Transit Authority. On 2 June 2005 Atre Vie Akihabara opened at the Shōwa-dōri entrance. On 17 August 2005 a new central gate ticket gate was installed at the JR station. On 24 August 2005 the Tsukuba Express began operating.
On 31 December 2006 Akihabara Department Store closed, and its department store entrance gate was closed at the same time. On 28 April 2010 the food court Tokyo Food Bar opened inside the JR first-floor ticket gate concourse. On 19 November 2010 the new station building Atre Akihabara 1 opened on the former department store site. Atre Vie Akihabara was renamed Atre Akihabara 2, and the old department store entrance gate was renamed the Atre 1 ticket gate. On 16 March 2013 the Hibiya Line station began interline ticketing with the Toei Shinjuku Line Iwamotochō station. On 20 June 2015 the Yamanote Line began using platform doors on tracks 2 and 3. On 15 May 2017 demolition of the JR East Akihabara Building began. On 1 March 2018 JR East outsourced operations at the station. On 7 October 2019 the hotel JR East Hotel Mets Akihabara opened on the former site. In autumn 2020 JR East launched the station-based shared office STATION BOOTH. On 12 March 2021 the Midori-no-Madoguchi at the Shōwa-dōri entrance closed. On 16 March 2024 the timetable revision made the Shinjuku Sazanami and Shinjuku Wakashio limited express trains pass through, so no limited express trains stopped here. On 7 April 2025 the station-inside commercial facility Ecute Akihabara opened inside the JR first-floor concourse. On 23 April 2025 smart home doors began to be used on the Sōbu Local Line platforms, tracks 5 and 6. On 6 May 2025 Tokyo Food Bar closed.
See all 54 dated events in the Data view →
Written by an AI from this station's own sourced facts (the dated events in the Data view), nothing else, and checked by a program for dates and numbers that are not in those facts. It can still be wrong. Found a mistake? . Adapted from Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0; this text is shared under the same licence.