is a passenger

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

in the city of

Maebashi is the capital city of Gunma Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 335,352 in 151,171 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . I ...

Gunma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fuku ...

, Japan, operated by

East Japan Railway Company The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters ar ...

(JR East). It is one of two main railway stations of Maebashi; the other is Chūō Maebashi Station of the

private railway A private railway is a railroad run by a private business entity (usually a corporation but not need be), as opposed to a railroad run by a public sector. Japan In Japan, , commonly simply ''private railway'', refers to a public transit railway o ...

operator Jōmō Electric Railway.

Lines

Maebashi Station is served by the

Ryōmō Line The is a Japanese railway line connecting Oyama in Tochigi Prefecture with Maebashi in Gunma Prefecture. long, the line is owned and operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The name refers to the fact that Gunma and Tochigi pre ...

, and is located 81.9 kilometers from the starting point of the line at Oyama Station. Some Shōnan Shinjuku Line and the Ueno-Tokyo Line services also originate at this station.

Station layout

The station consists of two elevated

island platform An island platform (also center platform, centre platform) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular o ...

s serving three tracks, with the station building underneath. The station has a ''

Midori no Madoguchi , which stands for ''Multi Access (originally Magnetic-electronic Automatic) seat Reservation System'', is a train ticket reservation system used by the railway companies of former Japanese National Railways, currently Japan Railways Group (JR Gro ...

'' ticket office.

Platforms

* Platform 1 mainly serves Oyama-bound trains, while Platforms 2,3 mainly serve Takasaki-bound trains.

History

Maebashi Station was opened by Ryōmō Railway on November 20, 1889. From August 20, 1884,

Nippon Railway was the first private railway company in the history of Japan. The company built trunk lines connecting Tokyo with the Tōhoku region to the northeast. Most of its lines came under the control of Japanese Government Railways following nationali ...

operated another Maebashi Station on the other side of the

Tone River The is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It is in length (the second longest in Japan after the Shinano) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the Kantō ...

, but this station was closed on December 26, 1889 when a bridge across the river was completed and Nippon Railway trains began sharing the Ryōmō Railway station. Ryōmō Railway was merged into Nippon Railway on January 1, 1897 and Nippon Railway was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...

on November 1, 1906.

Passenger statistics

In fiscal 2019, the station was used by an average of 10,511 passengers daily (boarding passengers only).

Surrounding area

* Maebashi Omote-machi Post Office

References

External links

JR East Station information
{{Shōnan-Shinjuku Line Railway stations in Gunma Prefecture Ryōmō Line Stations of East Japan Railway Company Railway stations in Japan opened in 1889 Maebashi