History
Kinomoto Station opened on 10 March 1882 with the official railway's Nagahama - Yanagase section, in what is now the city of Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. The 1895 line-naming placed it on the Tōkaidō Line, before transfers to the Hokuriku Line in 1902 and the Hokuriku Main Line in 1909. From 1882 to 1964 the station was also the southern terminus of the 26.1 km Yanagase Line to Tsuruga. JR West took over on 1 April 1987, and the 21 October 2006 DC electrification of the Nagahama - Tsuruga section saw the new Special Rapid service introduced and the station rebuilt as an elevated structure. The Midori-no-Madoguchi staffed window closed on 31 July 2023.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Until 1964 the station also served as the southern terminus of the Yanagase Line, the 26.1 km branch that crossed the steep Yanagase pass before the present mainline was rerouted via Ōmi-Shiotsu in 1957.