Kumagaya Station (熊谷駅) is an elevated station for the Shinkansen and a station with a concourse for conventional lines, in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. East Japan Railway Company and Chichibu Railway run services here. Its lines are the Takasaki Line, the Joetsu Shinkansen and the Hokuriku Shinkansen. It opened on 28 July 1883.
History
Kumagaya Station (熊谷駅) opened on 28 July 1883 as the terminus of the first section of the Nippon Railway, between Ueno and Kumagaya. That line is now the Takasaki Line, and the station is one of its oldest. In October 1883 the line was extended from here to Honjo, and it was later extended to Maebashi. The Joshu Railway (上武鉄道) opened on 7 October 1901. The Nippon Railway was nationalised on 1 November 1906. In October 1909 the line was divided and named, and Kumagaya became a station on the Takasaki Line between Omiya and Takasaki. On 25 February 1916 the Joshu Railway changed its name to Chichibu Railway. On 1 August 1922 the section from Gyoda to here, built by the Hokubu Railway, opened, and the Hokubu Railway merged into Chichibu Railway.
On 5 December 1943 the Tobu Kumagaya Line opened, using a Chichibu Railway platform. On 15 August 1945 an air raid on Kumagaya destroyed the freight and operations office, a meeting hall and official housing. The main buildings and tracks were spared. On 28 March 1946 Emperor Showa visited Saitama Prefecture on a postwar tour, and his special train ran between Harajuku and Kumagaya. On 17 January 1963 the station moved into a temporary building while its own building was rebuilt. On 15 December 1963 the new station building opened. It was a partly two-storey reinforced concrete building. On 1 May 1973 the Chichibu Railway platform was improved, and through services began between the Hanyu side and the Mitsumineguchi side.
On 1 October 1979 freight handling ended. On 15 November 1982 the Joetsu Shinkansen opened, and at the same time the national railway and Chichibu Railway station buildings and ticket gates were separated. On 1 June 1983 the Tobu Kumagaya Line closed. On 12 November 1983 a south exit was installed. Until then the station had only the front exit, on the north side.
On 1 April 1987, when national railways were split up, the station became a JR East station. On 24 April 1987 a station building named As opened. On 15 December 1987 a front station square with a rotary was installed. On 25 March 1992 the station travel centre was renovated and became View Plaza. On 10 March 1995 automatic ticket gates were installed at the gates for conventional lines, and on 20 January 1999 at the Shinkansen gates. Suica could be used at JR East from 18 November 2001. On 1 December 2001 the Shonan-Shinjuku Line began running, and a departure ceremony was held at this station. On 12 October 2003 Suica FREX and Suica FREX Pal commuter passes became usable on the Shinkansen. On 20 November 2004 the Tiara commercial building opened, directly linked to the station, with an east side called the Tiara exit.
In July 2013 the station marked its anniversary with commemorative events. On 1 April 2018 Touch de Go! Shinkansen service began. On 28 December 2019 View Plaza closed. On 14 March 2020 the Shinkansen e-ticket service started. On 12 March 2022 PASMO could be used on Chichibu Railway, and an IC-only automatic ticket gate was installed at its gates.
See all 32 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.