Zeze Station (膳所駅) is a ground-level station in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture. West Japan Railway Company and Japan Freight Railway Company run it. It opened on 15 July 1880 under the name Baba Station.
History
Zeze Station opened on 15 July 1880 as Baba Station (馬場駅), when the government railway was extended from the first Otsu station (later Hamaotsu) to Ōtani. Passenger and freight service began. On 1 July 1889 the line from Sekigahara to Zeze opened, and the Shinbashi to Kobe route was completed. The branch from Otsu to Zeze became a freight line, and its passenger service ended. Passenger service between Zeze and Otsu resumed on 1 August 1898. In October 1909 the line from Zeze to Otsu was named the Otsu Line.
On 1 March 1913 passenger service on the Otsu Line ended, and the line was merged into the Tokaido Line as a freight branch. On 1 June 1913 the second Otsu station was renamed, and the first Otsu station became Hamaotsu Station. In 1921 the Tokaido Line between Zeze and Inari closed. In 1932 the station was renamed Baba and became a freight-only station. On the new line between Baba and Kyoto, a new Otsu station (the current station) opened in 1932 for passengers, baggage and small parcels only. On 15 September 1934 the station was renamed Zeze, and passenger service resumed.
On 25 January 1947 the Kojaku Railway began running trains into the station, sharing the facilities of the freight branch between this station and Hamaotsu. The Kojaku Railway service ended on 10 July 1965. On 27 June 1968 two freight trains collided inside the station. The freight branch from Zeze to Hamaotsu closed on 1 November 1969. On 9 March 1970, when the Kusatsu to Kyoto section became four tracks, platforms were added. The station grew from one platform face with two tracks to two platform faces with four tracks.
On 1 April 1987, when Japanese National Railways was split up, the station passed to West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and Japan Freight Railway Company (JR Freight). On 29 July 2002 an operations control system for the JR Kyoto and Kobe lines was introduced. The Biwako Line nickname came into use on 13 March 1988. Automatic ticket gates opened on 7 March 1998. ICOCA could be used from 1 November 2003. On 1 March 2005 the freight train schedules ended.
A safety prayer ceremony for work on the station area was held on 27 March 2013. On 12 March 2015 an approach melody replaced the warning sound. Elevators and escalators began operating on 3 October 2015. On 18 March 2017 the stairs on the Kusatsu side were completed, and the stairs on the Kyoto side stopped being used. On 24 June 2017 the elevated station building and the north-south free passage opened, and a south exit was created. Station numbering began on 17 March 2018. On 26 June 2020 the Midori no Madoguchi (みどりの窓口) ticket office closed, and the Midori no Kenbaiki Plus machine was introduced on 27 June 2020. On 1 December 2020 JR West Transport Service Co., Ltd. began running the station under contract.
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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.