Umeda Station ( 梅田駅 , Umeda-eki ) is a major railway station in Kita-ku in the northern commercial center of Osaka , Japan. It is the busiest station in western Japan, serving 2,343,727 passengers daily in 2005.
23-546: Umeda Station is served by the following railways: The freight terminal of Japan Freight Railway Company (JR Freight) (Umeda Freight Branch of Tōkaidō Main Line ), closed in 2013, was also called Umeda. Portions of this line was moved underground in 2023. The nearby stations Ōsaka ( JR West ), Kitashinchi (JR West Tōzai Line ), Nishi-Umeda (Osaka Subway Yotsubashi Line , Y11) and Higashi-Umeda (Osaka Subway Tanimachi Line , T20) are within walking distance and connected by
46-510: A ground level station and moved to the present underground location on March 21, 1939. There are five bay platforms and four tracks on the second basement. There are east ticket gates on the second basement and center ticket gates and west ticket gates on the first basement. ■ ■ limited express trains (for Kobe and Himeji) including the first one departing for Himeji at 6:00 The Umeda terminal of Hankyu Railway (officially Osaka-umeda Station , but commonly called Hankyu Osaka-umeda Station )
69-684: A large complex of underground malls. Umeda is the 4th in the list of 50 busiest train stations in the world with an average number of 2.3 million people using the station everyday in 2024. The underground Umeda terminal of Hanshin Electric Railway (officially Osaka-Umeda Station , but commonly called Hanshin Osaka-Umeda Station ) is located south of Ōsaka Station, next to underground of Hanshin Department Store. The Hanshin station first opened on December 21, 1906 as
92-540: A single freight railway company, Japan Freight Railway Company. The company has only about 50 kilometers (31 mi) of track of its own, and therefore operates on track owned by the six JR passenger railways as well as other companies which provide rail transport in Japan . In 2017, only about 5% of all freight in Japan is carried by rail but nearly all of that, 99%, is carried by JR Freight. Trucks carry about 50% and ships about 44%. JR Freight has seen its share of
115-676: Is highly automated, and during peak hours trains run as often as every two minutes. JR-West's Urban Network competes with a number of private commuter rail operators around Osaka, the "Big 4" being Hankyu Railway / Hanshin Railway (Hankyu bought Hanshin in April 2005), Keihan Railway , Kintetsu , and Nankai Railway . JR-West's market share in the region is roughly equal to that of the Big 4 put together, largely due to its comprehensive network and high-speed commuter trains (Special Rapid Service trains on
138-555: Is located northeast of Ōsaka Station. The station first opened on March 10, 1910, as a ground-level station. The original location of the station was southeast of Ōsaka Station and the Hankyu (then Minoo-Arima Electric Tramway) tracks crossed the Tōkaidō Main Line by an overpass. The station was elevated on July 5, 1926. When Osaka Station was elevated in 1934, Hankyu's elevated tracks were forced to be removed and new Umeda Station
161-842: Is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu . It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka . It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange , is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and is also one of only three Japan Railways Group constituents of the Nikkei 225 index: the others are JR East and JR Central . It was also listed in the Nagoya and Fukuoka stock exchanges until late 2020. JR-West's highest-grossing line
184-467: Is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It provides transportation of cargo nationwide throughout Japan . Its headquarters are in Shibuya, Tokyo near Shinjuku Station . The Japan Railways Group was founded on 1 April 1987, when Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatized. Japanese National Railways was divided into six regional passenger rail companies and
207-793: Is the Sanyo Shinkansen high-speed rail line between Osaka and Fukuoka . The Sanyo Shinkansen alone accounts for about 40% of JR-West's passenger revenues. The company also operates Hakata Minami Line , a short commuter line with Shinkansen trains in Fukuoka . The "Urban Network" is JR-West's name for its commuter rail lines in the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area. These lines together comprise 610 km of track, have 245 stations and account for about 43% of JR-West's passenger revenues. Urban Network stations are equipped to handle ICOCA fare cards. Train control on these lines
230-592: The Sanyō Shinkansen , from the separate Shinkansen Holding Corporation. JR-West purchased the line in October 1991 at a cost of 974.1 billion JPY (about US$ 7.2 billion) in long-term debt. JNRSC sold 68.3% of JR-West in an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October 1996. After JNRSC was dissolved in October 1998, its shares of JR-West were transferred to the government-owned Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation (JRCC), which merged into
253-466: The Kobe and Kyoto lines operate at up to 130 km/h). Those in italics are announcement names. A number of other lines account for more than half of JR-West's track mileage. These lines mainly handle business and leisure travel between smaller cities and rural areas in western Japan. They account for about 20% of the company's passenger revenues. JR-West subsidiaries include the following. JR-West
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#1732772650068276-478: The Yotsubashi Line station is Nishi-Umeda (meaning "West Umeda"). These three stations are connected with each other by underground walkways. Regular tickets of the subway, Surutto Kansai cards and IC cards are valid until the passenger gets out the ticket barrier of the station. The transfer between the three Umeda stations is an exception of this principle; the fare can be calculated as one travel as if
299-602: The expansion of the station so that the station could not handle long trains. After the opening of the current huge elevated station, spaces around and beneath the station, as well as the site of former station, were extensively redeveloped. One of the symbols of the commercial complex surrounding the station is the BIG MAN video screen above the Kinokuniya bookshop , common and necessary places to meet in this bustling railway station. The Hankyu Department Store, built next to
322-412: The freight market gradually decrease since 1993. In the 2010s JR Freight has been carrying more freight because of the decrease in the number of available truck drivers due to age as well as government policy to reduce carbon dioxide. JR Freight has run a deficit for many years. While major part of the operation of JR Freight is on the tracks owned and maintained by other JR companies, JR Freight owns
345-654: The line was moved underground in 2023, resulting in an addition of underground passenger platforms at Ōsaka Station which was previously bypassed. The JR West Limited Express trains still use the freight line to transfer from the Osaka Loop Line to the JR Kyoto Line . No passenger trains had stopped at Umeda Freight Station itself. Japan Freight Railway Company Japan Freight Railway Company ( 日本貨物鉄道株式会社 , Nippon Kamotsu Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha ) , or JR Freight ( JR貨物 , Jeiāru Kamotsu ) ,
368-484: The passengers do not exit the station provided the passengers transfer within 30 minutes. Umeda Station on the Midōsuji Line started its operation on May 20, 1933, as a temporary station. The station was moved to the present location on October 6, 1935. Originally the station with an island platform and two tracks was built amid one tunnel, but on November 5, 1989, the station was expanded to a tunnel that existed next to
391-413: The railway lines (as Category-1 railway business) as follows: As of 1 March 2017 , JR Freight owns and operates the following rolling stock , with most of the newer motive stock being exclusively built by Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions : West Japan Railway Company The West Japan Railway Company , also referred to as JR West ( JR西日本 , Jeiāru Nishi-Nihon ) ,
414-620: The station (built for Tanimachi Line but due to change of plan remained unused for decades). The two tunnels are separated by a wall with some passages. Umeda Freight Terminal of Japan Freight Railway Company (JR Freight) was a freight terminal on the Umeda Branchline (unofficial name) of the Tōkaidō Main Line owned by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) . The station was built to separate freight services from Ōsaka Station and began operation on December 1, 1928. The yard of
437-484: The station in 1929, was a pioneer of the successful business model of department stores run by urban railway companies in Japan. The store is still in business at the original location even after the move of the station (as of 2007, the reconstruction of the store building is in progress). Station numbering was introduced to all Hankyu stations on 21 December 2013 with this station being designated as station number HK-01. There are ten bay platforms serving nine tracks on
460-489: The terminal was located to the north, literally in the backyard, of the Ōsaka Station. The freight terminal ceased to handle freight on March 16, 2013 and its function was succeeded by newly established Suita Freight Terminal [ ja ] and other nearby yards. The station was officially closed on March 31, 2013. The site, commonly called Ōsaka Station North Area ( ja:大阪駅北地区 , Ōsaka-eki Kita-chiku ) or Ume-kita ( うめきた ) , will be redeveloped. A portion of
483-497: The third floor. There are south ticket gates on the third floor and center ticket gates and on Chayamachi ticket gates on the second floor. Umeda is the transferring point of three lines of the metro: the Midōsuji Line, the Tanimachi Line and the Yotsubashi Line. Among them, only the Midōsuji Line station is named Umeda , with the station number M16 . The Tanimachi Line station is Higashi-Umeda (meaning "East Umeda") and
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#1732772650068506-399: Was built to handle new ground-level tracks. The switching of tracks were carried out on June 1, 1934. This station facility was used until November 28, 1971, when the move of station to the present location was completed. This move was because of a sharp increase of transit, which forced Hankyu to operate 8-car trains. The existence of JNR tracks on the northern end of the 1934 station prevented
529-529: Was incorporated as a business corporation ( kabushiki kaisha ) on April 1, 1987, as part of the breakup of the state-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR). Initially, it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the JNR Settlement Corporation (JNRSC), a special company created to hold the assets of the former JNR while they were shuffled among the new JR companies. For the first four years of its existence, JR-West leased its highest-revenue line,
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