History
Ōmiya Station opened on 16 March 1885 as a Nippon Railway stop. Local residents, led by future Ōmiya town mayor Shirai Sukeshichi, donated land for the station after the original Ueno - Kumagaya line bypassed the area in 1883. A railway workshop was added north of the station in 1894, beginning Ōmiya's identity as a "railway town." The Tōhoku and Jōetsu Shinkansen arrived in 1982, followed by the New Shuttle in 1983 and the Saikyō Line opening and Kawagoe Line electrification in 1985. JR East, Tōbu Railway, and Saitama New Urban Transit jointly operate the site today, which serves six Shinkansen routes and ranks second in Japan only to Tokyo for line count.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Shirai Sukeshichi, the donor of the land that became Ōmiya Station, is commemorated by a bronze bust set up in Kanetsuka Park in front of Ōmiya Sonic City in 2002 and by a steam locomotive (C12 No. 29) preserved in nearby Yamamaru Park.