History
Ishiba Station opened on 1 March 1913 on the Ōtsu Electric Tramway when the initial section from Ōtsu (now Biwako Hamaotsu) to Zeze (now Zeze-Honmachi) entered service. A 1929 incident saw vibration from a passing freight train collapse the station building and injure two passengers. The line and station passed to Biwako Tetsudō Kisen (1927), Keihan (1929), Keihanshin Kyūkō (1943) and back to Keihan (1949). Renaming of the route to the Ishiyama Sakamoto Line followed in 1936. Reconstruction works completed on 26 September 1965 moved the station to its present alignment; staffed hours were trimmed in 2003 and the stop is now unstaffed.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Before Keihan's Ishiba, a different Ishiba Station operated as a Tokaido Main Line freight halt from 1880; passenger service was suspended in 1889, revived in 1898, and finally abolished when the tramway opened in 1913.