History
Yasu Station opened on 16 June 1891 as a passenger and freight stop on the government-built Tokaido Main Line between Hachiman (now Ōmi-Hachiman) and Kusatsu. A traction-stock siding was established in 1966 and the Yasu Electric Car Yard followed in 1970, making the station a major terminating point for trains turning back at Yasu. Freight handling ceased on 1 February 1972, parcel handling six weeks later, and a second-generation elevated station building opened in January 1973. The station passed to JR West on 1 April 1987 and adopted the "Biwako Line" marketing nickname in March 1988. Automatic ticket gates entered service in 1998 and ICOCA support began on 1 November 2003. The Midori no Madoguchi ticket office closed on 30 November 2021. Station number JR-A21 was introduced in March 2018.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
The presence of the Yasu electric-car depot just north of the station was a key argument when Yasu Town and Chūzu Town merged in 2004: "the train depot and the recognisable Yasu Station name" featured explicitly among the reasons the new city was named Yasu.