History
Shinano-Oiwake Station opened on 25 June 1909 as the Railway Agency's provisional Oiwake halt, conceived by railway officials Hirai Seijirō and Nomura Ryūtarō as a way to revive the declining post-town of Oiwake by housing visiting university students in its old inns during summer. Acting on the direction of Hasegawa Kinsuke, the halt was promoted to a full station on 1 October 1923 under the name Shinano-Oiwake — the prefix "Shinano" being added because stations already named simply Oiwake existed on what are today the Muroran Main Line and Ōu Main Line. The station's commercial scope was repeatedly trimmed between 1969 and 1985, becoming unstaffed on 14 March 1985. JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 transferred the station to JR East, and on 1 October 1997 the partial opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen split off the line so that Shinano-Oiwake became a Shinano Railway station. A ticket-vending machine was added on 13 July 2013, and Suica usability began on 14 March 2026.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
At 957 m, Shinano-Oiwake is the highest station on the Shinano Railway and the highest non-JR conventional-rail station in Japan; in the Shin'etsu Main Line era it shared with the Chūō Main Line's Fujimi Station the distinction of being the highest station in Japan served by limited express trains, but limited-express service ceased when the line passed to Shinano Railway. (For comparison, the highest JR station overall is Nobeyama on the Koumi Line, at 1,345.67 m.)