Shimmachi Station (新町駅) is a ground-level station in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture. East Japan Railway Company and Japan Freight Railway Company run it. It opened on 27 December 1883.
History
Shimmachi Station opened on 27 December 1883 with the opening of the Nippon Railway's section from Honjō. It was the first station to open in Gunma and in northern Kantō. The section to Takasaki opened on 1 May 1884. On 1 November 1906 the railway was nationalised. On 12 November 1934 Army special manoeuvres were held in the area, and a special train carrying Emperor Showa ran between Shimmachi and Maebashi.
On 8 December 1939 a freight train shunting inside the station collided with a semi-express from Ueno bound for Oyama and Niigata. Both locomotives and the coaches derailed and overturned. One person died and several were hurt. On 1 October 1980 wagon freight handling ended, except for private sidings. On 1 February 1984 luggage handling ended. On 14 March 1985 a new limited express began to stop here. On 1 February 1987 a Green Window ticket office opened. On 1 April 1987 the station passed to East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and Japan Freight Railway Company (JR Freight). Regular freight trains ended on 1 April 1998.
Suica became usable on 18 November 2001. From 10 March 2016 the station was unstaffed in the early morning. In March 2019 the Takasaki Line switched to central traffic control, which ended the train-handling work done here. The station had also handled signals for Kita-Fujioka Station. On 1 July 2019 station operations were outsourced.
On 25 May 2021 an elevator was installed on each platform. On 15 December 2022 the Green Window ticket office closed.
See all 18 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.