History
Numata Station opened on 1924-03-31 as a station on the Jōetsu Line. Parcel handling ended in stages in 1984–85, and the station passed to JR East at the 1987-04-01 privatisation following the dissolution of the Japanese National Railways. Automatic ticket gates were introduced on 2006-02-21, and on 2009-03-14, with the expansion of the Tokyo metropolitan area, Suica IC service became available here. The station moved to contracted operation on 2019-11-01, with management transferred to Minakami Station. The dedicated ticket office (Midori-no-madoguchi) closed on 2022-11-30. As the principal station for the city of Numata, it sits at the western foot of the river terrace formed by the Tone and Katashina rivers and serves as a gateway to Fukiware Falls, Oigami Onsen and Oze.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Before the Jōetsu Line reached Numata, a horsecar and later electric tramway operated by Tone Kidō - eventually absorbed by Tokyo Dentō (later TEPCO) - linked Shibukawa to Numata's town centre from 1911 until the 1924 station opening.