Hirai (Tokyo)

History

Hirai Station opened on 28 April 1899 as a Sōbu Railway stop in the Hirai neighbourhood of present-day Edogawa, Tokyo. The line was nationalised on 1 September 1907 under the Railway Nationalisation Act and the station passed to the Imperial Railway Agency. The original buildings burned to the ground in the firebombing of Tokyo on 10 March 1945. With the breakup of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987 the station came under JR East. Suica service started on 18 November 2001, the staffed Midori no Madoguchi ticket office closed on 25 February 2013, and operations were outsourced on 1 March 2017. A "Chapeau Loco Hirai" shopping facility opened beside the elevated tracks on 20 March 2018.

History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.

Notes

Although Hirai sits on an elevated viaduct, the surrounding neighbourhood lies in a subsidence zone roughly two metres below sea level, sandwiched between the old Naka River and the Ara River.