History
Sumiyoshi Station was first opened on 1 June 1874 on the government-built Tōkaidō railway between Nishinomiya (then Nishinomiya) and Sannomiya, twenty days after the line first opened between Kobe and Osaka. The original station building was English-style red brick. A line-name reform on 1 April 1895 placed the station on the Tōkaidō Line (Tōkaidō Main Line from 1909). It was relocated to its current, more southerly site on 11 August 1912. Electrification between Fukutada and Suma began on 20 July 1934, but Sumiyoshi only became an electric-train stop on 20 September that year. The Great Hanshin Flood of 5 July 1938 buried the station precinct in mud and debris and stranded a tilted express train. Freight handling ended on 1 February 1984, and the station passed to JR West on 1 April 1987 with the JNR breakup. The 'JR Kobe Line' nickname began service on 13 March 1988; the bridge-style station building opened on 14 April 1988, and the 'Liv Sumiyoshi' terminal building was completed on 3 March 1989. Rapid service began on 10 March 1990. The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 17 January 1995 suspended service; trains resumed between Ashiya and Sumiyoshi on 8 February with the station temporarily becoming the western terminus, and the JR Kobe Line was fully restored on 1 April 1995. ICOCA service began on 1 November 2003, and station numbering was introduced on 17 March 2018. The Kobe New Transit (Rokkō Liner) station opened on 21 February 1990 with the inauguration of the Rokkō Island Line. The JR ticket window (Midori-no-Madoguchi) is scheduled to close on 31 May 2026.
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
Sumiyoshi is the only station where the Rokkō Liner originates. JR tickets and passes sometimes print the station as '(東)住吉' - '(East) Sumiyoshi' - to distinguish it from the Sumiyoshi Station on the Misumi Line in Kumamoto Prefecture; the '東' refers to the Tōkaidō. During the 1995 earthquake recovery, when this normally through-only station became a terminus, JR West inserted a scissors crossover repurposed from the JR-Namba underground project just to the east; building turnback sidings was impossible because the 9‰ gradient and the damaged Rokkō-michi viaduct left no room. The Rokkō Liner suffered a fallen girder on Platform 2 and a leaning eastern pier in the same earthquake; full Rokkō Island Line service resumed on 23 August 1995, making it the last non-cable-car rail line in Kobe to be restored.