Tsu Station

Tsu Station (津駅, Tsu-eki) is a joint use railway station in Tsu, Mie Prefecture, operated by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), Kintetsu and the Ise Railway. The station is 34.6 rail kilometres from the terminus of the line at Kameyama Station and 8.4 rail kilometres from the terminus of the Kintetestu Yamada Line at Ise-Nakagawa Station. The name of the station is considered the shortest in Japan because it is the only station name that is written with one kana, even though other stations have shorter names when written in Latin letters, such as Oe Station.

History

Tsu Station opened on November 4, 1891, as a station on the Tsu spur line of the privately owned Kansai Railway. The line was nationalized on October 1, 1907, becoming the Sangu Line of the Japanese Government Railways (JGR) on October 12, 1909. On April 3, 1932, the Sangu Express Electric Railway began operations at Tsu Station. This line underwent various changes in ownership, eventually becoming the Kintetsu Nagoya Line in 1944. The station was transferred to the control of the Japan National Railways (JNR) Kisei Main Line on July 15, 1959. The JNR Ise Line began operations on September 1, 1973. The station was absorbed into the JR Central network upon the privatization of the (JNR) on April 1, 1987, with the Ise Line spun off to the private sector a few days earlier.

Ōtsu Station

Ōtsu Station (大津駅, Ōtsu-eki) is a railway station on the Tōkaidō Main Line (Biwako Line) in Kasuga-cho, Ōtsu, Shiga, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West).

Station layout

It is a ground-level station with two island platforms and four tracks. There are two gates on the south and north; the latter is named Biwako Entrance. Each platform is connected with an underpass to the gates by two stairs and an elevator.

Platforms

The station is situated on the middle of a four-track section. Some Special Rapid Service trains and some Kusatsu Line direct service train in the morning and evening use the outer two tracks (Nos. 1 and 4 for each direction) and other trains use the inner tracks (Nos. 2 and 3).

Adjacent stations

History

The current station complex was built in 1921 when a new route was introduced to the section between Kyoto Station and Zeze Station.

First station

The first Ōtsu Station was built on July 15, 1880, the site of which is now occupied by Hama-Ōtsu Station of Keihan Electric Railway. Trains from Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto switchedback at Baba Station (present-day Zeze Station) to overcome an elevation difference and entered into Ōtsu Station, the terminal adjacent to a port of the Lake Biwa. The railway with the port station provided joint service with boats on the lake which enabled the transport of passengers and freight between the new capital, Tokyo, and the old capital, Kyoto despite of incompleteness of the railway in the Shiga Prefecture area. This is the first example of the train-boat joint service in Japan. The boats left each port, Ōtsu and Nagahama, 3 times a day and took about 3 hours to cross the lake.