Maebashi Station (前橋駅) is an elevated station in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. East Japan Railway Company runs it on the Ryōmō Line. The first station here opened on 20 August 1884.
History
The first Maebashi Station opened on 20 August 1884, run by Nippon Railway (日本鉄道). On 20 November 1889, the Ryōmō Railway (両毛鉄道) opened another Maebashi Station at a site that is now Omote-machi 2-chome. On 26 December 1889, Nippon Railway closed its station after it extended its line to the Ryōmō Railway station. On 1 January 1897, Nippon Railway took over the Ryōmō Railway. On 1 November 1906, the line was bought and nationalised, and the government railway took it over.
In 1902, the station opened its third station building. On 12 October 1909, a track naming decision made it a station on the Ryōmō Line. In 1927, a fourth station building opened. On 1 June 1949, the Japanese National Railways (国鉄) was formed and the station came under it. On 1 December 1957, the track between this station and Shin-Maebashi was electrified with direct current (DC).
On 1 September 1968, the track from Koyama to this station was electrified with DC. A Midori no Madoguchi ticket window (みどりの窓口) opened on 10 October 1970, and a travel centre opened on 1 April 1973. Freight service ended on 21 October 1981, and parcel service ended on 14 March 1985. On 16 October 1983, Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun visited the prefecture for a National Sports Festival. A special train ran from Maebashi Station to Harajuku Station.
On 6 October 1986, the elevated station was completed. This was the fifth station building. On 1 April 1987, the Japanese National Railways was split up and privatised, and the station became part of East Japan Railway Company (JR East). On 19 December 1995, automatic ticket gates began operating. On 1 July 2011, the public transport area at the north plaza was finished and the bus and taxi stops moved. In April 2012, work on the whole north plaza was finished.
On 18 November 2001, the Suica IC card became usable here. On 19 April 2014, the departure melody was changed to Tulip (チューリップ), a children's song by Takeshi Inoue, a native of Maebashi. On 26 January 2017, Midori no Madoguchi and View Plaza were combined and reopened near the old View Plaza spot, as part of seismic reinforcement work. The automatic ticket machines were moved too. On 30 March 2020, View Plaza closed. On 13 March 2021, a timetable revision ended express and commuter rapid trains running into the Takasaki Line area. The commuter rapid service was merged into the Urban Rapid.
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.