History
Higashi-Hanawa Station opened on 30 March 1928 as a station on the privately operated Fuji-Minobu Railway. The line was leased to the Ministry of Railways on 1 October 1938 and fully nationalised on 1 May 1941, when the station became part of the Minobu Line. The station building was reconstructed in 1950. Parcel handling ended on 14 March 1985. With the privatisation of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987 it came under joint control of JR Central and JR Freight. Scheduled freight operations ceased on 29 September 1998 and the freight facilities were abolished by 31 March 2001, ending JR Freight's involvement. The station returned to direct JR Central operation in July 2012.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Higashi-Hanawa is the most-used JR Central station in Yamanashi Prefecture and one of the few staffed stations on the Minobu Line; its broad yard still retains roughly ten unused sidings from its former role as the line's last freight station.