History
Utsunomiya Station opened on 16 July 1885 as a station on the Nippon Railway's second-district line and was for a time its northern terminus, with passengers crossing the unfinished Tone River bridge by ferry until the span was completed the following year. On 1 June 1890 Nippon Railway opened the branch to Nikko from here. Following nationalisation in 1906, the routes were designated the Tohoku and Nikko lines. The Tohoku Shinkansen platforms opened on 23 June 1982, and the station passed to JR East and JR Freight at the 1987 privatisation. The Utsunomiya Light Rail terminus opened east of the station in 2023.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Japan's first widely sold ekiben — two rice balls with a pickled-radish garnish — is traditionally credited to Utsunomiya Station's platform vendors.