History
Ishiyama Station opened on 1 April 1903 as a passenger-only station on the State Railway Tōkaidō Line between Kusatsu and Baba (now Zeze), although the line itself had been built through this point in 1889. Freight handling began on 15 March 1908 and an overpass was installed on 1 April 1912. A new flat-style building came into service on 1 April 1929. On 25 April 1930 the Tōkaidō Main Line Ishiyama Station derailment occurred when an express train overturned at high speed at a switch; 13 people were injured. On 19 November 1956 the section was electrified. The station became a bridge-style building on 10 February 1970, and the Kyoto – Kusatsu section was quadrupled-tracked on 9 March 1970 in time for the Osaka Expo. North-side exit opened on 17 April 1970. The station joined JR West and JR Freight on 1 April 1987; ICOCA service started 1 November 2003; freight train scheduling was abolished on 18 March 2007; station numbering JR-A27 was introduced on 17 March 2018; and the Midori-no-Madoguchi ticket office closed on 30 November 2024. An adjacent Keihan Ishiyama Station, on the Keihan Ishiyama Sakamoto Line (station code OT03), connects via a concourse; it opened on 12 January 1914 as Ishiyama-Eki-Mae ("In Front of Ishiyama Station"), passed through the Keihan-Shinkyū merger like its neighbour, and was renamed Keihan Ishiyama on 1 April 1953.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
On 25 April 1930 a Tokyo–Shimonoseki down-bound express on the Tōkaidō Main Line (14 cars, hauled by C53-30 with about 650 passengers aboard) derailed and overturned at Ishiyama Station while taking the diverging branch at speed; 13 people were injured. The half-steel coaches escaped the kind of destruction that wooden stock had suffered four years earlier in the September 1926 Sanyō Main Line accident, and the engine driver was fined ¥100. An out-of-town Tokyo newspaper ran an 'Express train derailed and overturned, many dead and injured' special edition that turned out to be false and caused considerable embarrassment.