History
Sone Station opened on 30 May 1912 as a station of the Mino-Arima Electric Tramway (today's Hankyu Railway), in Sone-Higashi-machi 3-chōme, Toyonaka, Osaka. Elevation works proceeded in stages: the upbound platform moved to the new elevated structure (now track 4) on 6 November 1994 while the downbound side remained on the ground (then track 1); the downbound platform was raised on 8 November 1997, becoming the present island platform serving Osaka-Umeda direction; and on 29 January 2000 a new downbound main and platform came into use, completing the elevation project. The under-track commercial development "Tio Hankyū Sone" opened on 25 April 2001. Station numbering (HK-44) was introduced on 21 December 2013.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
When the surrounding area was farmland at the station's 1912 opening, Hankyū founder Kobayashi Ichizō moved Tōkō-in (the "Hagi Temple"), then in Nakatsu, to Sone — acting on his conviction that "a residential district cannot be developed without a powerful temple at hand". Sone subsequently grew through the late Taishō and Shōwa years into one of the era's mansion districts, ranked alongside Ashiya in the saying "Ashiya in the west, Sone in the east".