History
Inotani Station opened on 27 November 1930 as a stop on the Ministry of Railways' Hietsu Line, which was absorbed into the Takayama Main Line when that route was completed. From 1931 the narrow-gauge Kamioka Tramway connected here, handling tens of thousands of tonnes of zinc and sulphuric acid traffic each year for the Kamioka mine; the tramway closed in 1967 after the JNR's Kamioka Line opened in 1966. The station passed to JR West on 1 April 1987, becoming the boundary station between JR West and JR Central on the Takayama Main Line. The Kamioka Line, by then operated by third-sector Kamioka Railway, closed on 1 December 2006.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Inotani is one of only two stations on Japan's conventional-line network where two JR passenger companies meet at an unstaffed station — the other is Nakaoguni — and crew changeovers between JR West and JR Central still take place on the platform at every Hida limited-express service.