History
Hon-Kawagoe Station opened on 21 March 1895 as Kawagoe Station on the Kawagoe Railway and is the oldest of Kawagoe's three central stations. It was renamed Hon-Kawagoe on 22 July 1940 when the Japanese Government Railways opened the Kawagoe Line and its own Kawagoe Station. The current terminal moved to its present site on 21 March 1953. Layout changes in 1990 and 1998 reshaped the platforms from three faces with five tracks to today's two-platform, three-track stub-end configuration. A new west exit and forecourt opened on 20 February 2016, easing transfers to Tōbu's nearby Kawagoeshi Station, and on 20 October 2012 the secondary name "Toki no Kane to Kura no Machi" was adopted to draw tourists.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
In 2007 the station hosted a special-train arrival for the Emperor, Empress, and visiting King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during a Kawagoe sightseeing trip.