Uji Station (Keihan) (宇治駅 (京阪))
Uji Station, located in Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, is a stop on the Keihan Uji Line, which is operated by Keihan Electric Railway. It is a terminal station of the Uji Line.
The distance between this station and Uji Station of the West Japan Railway Company (JR West), located across the Yodo-gawa River, is approximately 890 meters along the available road. This station is usually called Keihan Uji Station, because it's confusing that the two stations have the same name. Likewise, Uji Station of JR West is also called JR Uji Station.
On holidays, the station is crowded with tourists. In some seasons, it's so crowded that additional, temporary ticket-selling counters are provided in the rotary in front of the station.
Station layout
It is located on the ground level, with a toothed platform serving two tracks, where one end of the platform is expanded to both track sides, providing a spacious open area. The station house and ticket gate are located on the spacious open area at the end of the platform. Only one ticket gate is provided.
The effective platform length is sufficient to accommodate a five-car train. Most of the trains depart from Platform 2. Platform 1 is used only in the morning rush hours and in the night on weekdays, and only one train arrives at and departs from there on Saturdays and Sundays.
A melody is used to indicate a train's departure.
Station surroundings
Agata-jinja Shrine
"The Tale of Genji" Museum
Tonoshima (a small island in the Uji-gawa River)
Mimurodo Station: Located approximately 400 meters north of this station. It takes slightly more than a minute for a train departing from Uji Station to reach Mimurodo Station.
Buses
In the following list, the buses on the routes other than the Uji-Yodo route are operated exclusively by Keihan Uji Bus. In the season of hydrangea bloom, extra buses are operated for Mimuroto-ji Temple.
Keihan Uji Station (Keihan Bus/Keihan City Bus)/Keihan Uji (Keihan Uji Bus)
Keihan Uji Bus/Keihan Bus
The Uji-Yodo route: Bound for Yodo Station (via Okubo Station (Kyoto Prefecture))
Routes 23, 23A: Bound for Chushojima Station (via Kintetsu Okubo)
Route 27: Bound for Kintetsu Okubo (via Jonan-so)
Routes 22A, 22C: Bound for the Kumiyama-danchi housing complex (via Kintetsu Okubo)
Routes 35, 35B: Bound for Kintetsu Okubo (via Ogura Station (Kyoto Prefecture)/(route 35B) Kyoto Furitu Todo Koto-gakko-mae (in front of the Kyoto Prefectural Todo High School)
Route 111: Bound for Mukaijima Station
Routes 41, 43, 44, 45: Bound for Taiyogaoka: * Buses on routes 41and 45 run via Biwakodai-san-chome.
Routes 41A, 44A, 45A: Bound for Taiyogaokageto-mae (in front of Taiyogaoka Gate)
Routes 180, 180B: Bound for Ichu-mae (in front of Ichu) (via Taiyogaokageto-mae (in front of Taiyogaoka Gate)): * Buses on routes 180B run via Biwakodai-san-chome.
Route 184: Bound for Ujitawara Kogyodanchi (the Ujitawara industrial park) (via Taiyogaokageto-mae (in front of Taiyogaoka Gate))
Routes 240, 240A, 250, 250A: Bound for Kintetsu Okubo (via Biwakodai and Shokubutsu Koen (the botanical park)): * Buses on routes 240A and 250A run via Ritsumeikan Uji High School.
Routes 43, 104: Bound for Obaku Station (via Myojo-cho)
Routes 108, 250, 250A: Bound for Obaku Station (via Morimoto)
Routes 35B, 41B: Bound for the Todo High School (via Morimoto)
The Morimoto Ritsumeikan route, where through bus service is provided: Bound for Ritsumeikan Uji High School: * Operated only on days when the students go to school.
Additionally, the route for Uji-shako Depot (the first bus stop from this station) is available.
Keihan Bus
The Tokyo Midnight Express Uji-go bus
History
June 1, 1913: The Keihan Uji Line and this station started their operations at the same time.
October 1, 1943: The companies concerned merged, and this station became a station of Keihanshin Express Electric Railway (Hankyu Corporation).
December 1, 1949: Due to a separation of the company, this station became a facility of Keihan Electric Railway.
May 28, 1967: The use of PTC started.
June 17, 1995: The station was moved to the present site, corresponding to the redevelopment of the area in front of the station.
October 1, 1996: The new station house was selected as the one with a good design.
August 5, 1997: The Keihan Uji Building, a multipurpose commercial facility, opened in order to promote the more effective use of the land owned by the railway company.
September 19, 2000: This station was chosen in the first selection of 100 prominent stations in the Kinki region.
Others
The work of building a station at a new site was started in December 1991, and the new station house assumed the operations of the old one in June 1995. The new station house is located 180 meters nearer to Mimurodo Station than the former one was, but for this reason a square provided with a rotary and taxi-waiting space has been made available in front of the station.
Even after this, the station building, to be described later, has been constructed as well as a bicycle-parking space, and then in December 1996 the construction of the Keihan Uji Building--which is now used as a concourse and accommodates commercial facilities--started at full scale in front of the station, and the building opened in August 1997. An3 (a convenience store) is now located in the building, but when the building opened, the U-house Keihan Uji limousine center of the defunct Keihan Uji Kotsu (transportation) company was located on the second floor.
On a wall in the entrance area, there is an enormous stained-glass picture, 'Hisho (Flight).'
The U-house Keihan Uji limousine center was closed in 2002, and a Kyoshin cram school is now located there.
The circular station house was designed by Hiroyuki WAKABAYASHI, who also designed the Nankai 50000 Series train car used by Nankai Electric Railway Co., Ltd., and in 1996 became the first private company-owned one to win a prize for good design. The station was revitalized in December 2005, and the former station-name display boards, which employed blue fluorescent lamps, were replaced with new, silver-coated non-self-color-generating ones (that don't emit light by themselves and on the rear side of which fluorescent lamps or electric lamps are placed).
Prior to the year 2000, when the train operating schedule was changed, no limited express trains stopped at Chushojima Station except the outbound ones during morning rush hours. In the period of November 1998 to the autumn of 1999, 'Uji rapid trains,' providing through service from the Osaka area, were operated in the seasons in which people enjoyed outings.
On the Keihan Line, the city name is usually given to a station located in the central area of a city, such as Moriguchi City Station and Hirakata City Station, but this station is the only one in which "City" isn't included in the name.
The reason isn't clear, but the unofficial notation of 'Keihan Uji' was used until recently (in the past, it was customary to use unofficial station names because it was sometimes necessary to use notations on designated round-trip tickets and also to differentiate this station from the JR station with the same name in transportation connecting with JR). Today, with almost all stations using official names given by the respective railway companies, the situation around the names of the Uji stations was a rare exception.
This station was chosen in the first selection of 100 prominent stations in the Kinki region.
Adjacent stations
Keihan Electric Railway
Uji Line
Mimurodo Station - Uji station