History
Ashiharabashi Station opened on 1 April 1966 on the Osaka Loop Line in Naniwa-ku, Osaka, replacing the role of the soon-to-close Osaka City Tram stop of the same name. The Loop Line itself had been converted from the freight-only Osaka Rinkō Line in 1961, but no passenger station had been built between Taishō and Imamiya until local demand prompted construction. JR West took over in 1987. Automatic ticket gates were installed in 1997 and ICOCA was introduced in November 2003. The station became Japan's first to install an elevator for disabled passengers and now operates remotely from Shin-Imamiya.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Ashiharabashi was the first railway station in Japan to install an elevator for use by wheelchair passengers, and its departure melody is the local taiko troupe "Ikari"'s composition "Matsuri".