Ashikaga Station (足利駅) in Ashikaga, Tochigi, is run by East Japan Railway Company and serves the Ryōmō Line. It opened on 22 May 1888.
History
The station opened on 22 May 1888 as a station of the Ryomo Railway (両毛鉄道). The Ryomo Railway was sold to the Nippon Railway (日本鉄道) on 1 January 1897. The Nippon Railway was nationalised on 1 November 1906 and moved to the government railway. The present station building was completed in 1933.
The Japanese National Railways took over on 1 June 1949. A south exit opened in 1980. Freight handling ended on 1 February 1984, and luggage handling on 14 March 1985. JR East took over on 1 April 1987.
In 1998 the station was named one of the Kanto Station Selection (関東の駅百選). The panel said it stands in a town with a long history, and that its stained glass and western-style design show the foreign culture of the time it opened. Suica became usable on 18 November 2001. In March 2006 the kiosk and the station soba shop closed. On 28 March 2006 a ticket machine called もしもし券売機Kaeruくん and automatic gates came into use, and the Midori ticket window closed.
Lightning struck the station building on 25 July 2008 and burned part of the second-floor interior. A lift was installed on 18 March 2010, making the station step-free. On 7 February 2012 the Kaeru-kun machine ended, and a multi-function ticket machine was installed on 8 February 2012. The Viewplaza (びゅうプラザ) closed on 31 March 2014.
On 24 July 2015 a departure melody was introduced: 'Watarase Bridge' (渡良瀬橋) by Chisato Moritaka (森高千里). Later in 2015 the station building underwent a tidy-up for tourism and appearance. In 2019 the Japan Society of Civil Engineers chose the station building as a civil engineering heritage (土木遺産), for its role in building present-day Ashikaga and its Showa-era modern style. On 26 April 2019 the migration and settlement centre Aidacco (足利市移住・定住相談センター「Aidacco」) opened. On 4 April 2020 the Tochigi marriage support centre opened inside Aidacco. In February 2021 the pole signs and hanging signs were redesigned with a textile pattern to match the Ryomo Line. In July 2022 Aidacco moved into the Tobu Isesaki Line's Ashikaga-shi Station (足利市駅).
See all 26 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.