Eda (Fukushima)

No publicly available departure data for this station.

Eda Station has an unusually long history of advocacy. It opened on 10 October 1917 as Eda Signal Box on the Ban'etsu East Line at a point on a 15.2-permille grade, making promotion to a full station prohibitively expensive (~300,000 yen, the cost of switchback construction). Seasonal autumn-foliage stops began in 1930 and continued through the wartime period despite the signal box itself being abolished in 1933. From 1 October 1948 the site reopened as a flag stop (kari-jōkōjō), with all local trains stopping from 1967. From August 1978 commuter passes were sold using Eda as a calculation point — a national first. It was finally promoted to a permanent station on 31 March 1987, one day before JR privatisation; assigned operating-kilometres were not set until 10 March 1990.

Until the early 1970s the signal box had a unique form of switchback: a single dead-end "acceleration line" branching off on the down-grade (Taira/Iwaki) side, used by trains to gather speed before tackling the climb toward Kawamae. The branch joined the platform from its centre, on the Iwaki-side left, and its alignment is still visible.