History
Hirahara Station traces its history to the Hirahara Signal Box, opened on 10 October 1921 on the Railway Ministry's Shin'etsu Main Line in what is today Komoro, Nagano Prefecture. The signal box was promoted to a full station on 10 January 1952. Parcel handling ended and staff were withdrawn on 21 March 1984, and the station passed to JR East on 1 April 1987 at the JNR privatisation. With the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen on 1 October 1997, the parallel conventional line through Hirahara was transferred to the third-sector Shinano Railway, which has operated the station ever since.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Hirahara's waiting room is a converted Type Yo-5000 freight brake-van; such repurposed wagons are common in Hokkaido but rare south of it, making the station a notable exception on Honshu.