History
Matoba-cho opened on 23 November 1912 when Hiroden's Main Line began running between Hiroshima Station and Kamiya-cho. The crossing Hijiyama Line — built during the Pacific War to reinforce the link to military-port Hiroshima — opened on 27 December 1944 and added its own platforms here. The stop was suspended after the 6 August 1945 atomic bombing; the Main Line section to Hiroshima Station resumed service on 11 October 1945 and the Hijiyama Line followed on 1 July 1948. A crossover on the Hijiyama Line side, towards Hijiyama-shita, was added on 30 January 1982. In October 1996 platform-specific station numbers M3 (Main Line side) and H3 (Hijiyama Line side) were assigned. With the opening of the Ekimae-ohashi route on 3 August 2025 the Main Line section between Hiroshima Station and Matoba-cho was abolished and the stop closed temporarily; the line was rebuilt so that the Inari-machi and Hijiyama-shita directions through-connect, and the stop reopened on 28 March 2026 as a Circular Line stop with the new number L01.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
Until 2 August 2025, Matoba-cho had a 4-platform / 4-track layout with the Main Line and Hijiyama Line each on its own pair of side platforms, with a trolley-contactor automating the diverging point between the lines from November 1955; the four-platform layout was rebuilt into a two-platform island structure as part of the Ekimae-ohashi works.