History
Seba Station is a small station on the JR Central Chūō Main Line in Sōga-Seba, Shiojiri City, Nagano Prefecture, sitting 226.3 km from the Tokyo end of the line and 170.6 km from Nagoya. It opened on 1 December 1909 as a Government-built station on the Chūō-Tōsen line (renamed the Chūō Main Line on 1 May 1911), at first handling both passengers and freight in the village of Sōga, Higashi-Chikuma District. Freight handling ended on 30 November 1972 and parcel service on 1 February 1984; the station was placed under simple commission on 22 March 1985. It transferred to JR Central at the 1 April 1987 privatisation. The 1909 wooden station building still stands and the original waiting room is in use, although the ticket and parcels windows have been boarded over and the old office serves as a track-maintenance crew room.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.
Notes
The station name derives from "Seba-shō", the historic name for the area from the 8th century onwards, and Seba-juku — a post town on the Edo-era Nakasendō. Seba is the northernmost station JR Central manages on the Chūō Line and the northernmost JR Central station in Nagano Prefecture; the company's Kiso area free-pass coverage ends here.