Gion-shijo

History

Gion-Shijō Station serves the Keihan Main Line in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, on the east bank of the Kamo River at Shijō-ōhashi bridge. It opened on 27 October 1915 as Shijō Station, originally with platforms in a staggered layout split by Shijō Street with the depot building on the southern downbound side. A 1935 Kamo River flood and a 1947 plan to relocate the line underground were repeatedly deferred until the 1975 Kyoto undergrounding decision; the line was buried on 24 May 1987 and surface tracks gave way to Kawabata-dōri the following year. The station was renamed Gion-Shijō on 19 October 2008, the day the Nakanoshima Line opened, to distinguish it from the Karasuma subway's Shijō Station.

History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.

Notes

When the line was being undergrounded, the Kamogawa-bank tracks twice suffered serious flooding — the 1935 Kamo River flood washed away parts of the station, and on 15 July 1987, just weeks after the undergrounding opened, an intense thunderstorm sent water from the Shirakawa stream into the new tunnel and shut down the whole stretch north of Shichijō for a day.