Otsu Station

Ōtsu Station 大津駅
North side of Ōtsu Station, August 2010
Location	Ōtsu, Shiga Japan
Operated by	JR West
Line(s)	Tōkaidō Main Line
History
Opened	1921

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).

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.

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).

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