History
Ikuno Station opened on 17 April 1895 as the terminus of the Banta Railway when the line was extended from Hase. A southward extension to Arai in 1901 shifted the platform 300 m south to its present position. The line passed to Sanyo Railway in 1903, was nationalised in 1906, and became part of the Bantan Line in 1909. Freight handling ended in 1973 and parcel service in 1984, and the station joined JR West on 1 April 1987 with the breakup of Japanese National Railways. A new west-side station building opened in 2009, and ICOCA acceptance began on 13 March 2021. The limited express Hamakaze stops here.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Due to the line's leftward curve and uphill grade through Ikuno, the tracks operate in right-hand running here — a rare configuration in Japan, adopted because steam locomotives struggled to stop on the gradient when approached from a left-hand switch.