Hikone Station
railway station in Hikone, Shiga prefecture, Japan
Hikone Station (彦根駅, Hikone-eki) is an interchange passenger railway station located in the city of Hikone, Shiga, Japan. It is operated jointly by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and the private railway operator Ohmi Railway.
Lines
Hikone Station is served by the Biwako Line portion of the JR Tōkaidō Main Line, and is 6.0 kilometers from Maibara and 451.9 kilometers from Tokyo. It is also a station on the Ohmi Railway Main Line and is 5.8 kilometers from the starting point of that line at Maibara.
Layout
The JR Station has two opposed side platforms serving two tracks. Both platforms are connected to the ticket gate on the bridge over the tracks. The east end of the bridge, on the ground, is the Ohmi Railway station wishbone island platform. The station has a Midori no Madoguchi staffed ticket office.
Platform
Adjacent stations
History
The station opened on 1 July 1889 as a station for passengers and cargo on the Japanese Government Railway (JGR) Tōkaidō Line, which became the Japan National Railways (JNR) after World War II. The Ohmi Railway opened on 11 June 1898. Freight operations were discontinued in November 1986.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hikone Station” is railway station in Hikone, Shiga prefecture, Japan. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hikone, Station and railway, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “railway station in Hikone, Shiga prefecture, Japan” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1131151. Authority coordinates are 35.273, 136.263. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1898 and 1986.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hikone Station”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hikone Station primary sources, Hikone Station archive and Hikone research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hikone Station”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Hikone Station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.