Overview

The Biwako Line (A) runs 23 stations and 75.4 km from Nagahama down the eastern shore of Lake Biwa into Kyoto. It is a nickname rather than a railway: Maibara to Kyoto belongs to the Tokaido Main Line, Maibara to Nagahama to the Hokuriku Main Line, and JR West brands the two together. The name came out of a climbdown. JR West ran a public poll for what to call the Maibara–Osaka stretch, the winner was the old informal 湖東線, and JR West announced 「JR京都線」 for the whole thing anyway — at which point Shiga Prefecture and its assembly pushed for something rooted in Shiga, and the Maibara–Kyoto half was renamed 琵琶湖線 in February 1988. The Nagahama end joined three years later, once 田村–長浜 had been converted from AC to DC and the Kyoto–Osaka rapids could run through.

Along the route

Maibara, four stops in, is the only station on the line where JR West meets JR Central: the Tokaido Shinkansen stops here, the Tokaido Main Line continues towards Nagoya as somebody else's railway, and the Ohmi Railway starts its own run south. Then the lake shore proper — Hikone for the castle, Notogawa, Azuchi below the ruins of Nobunaga's Azuchi Castle, Omihachiman, Yasu, Moriyama. Kusatsu is where the line widens: it is the eastern end of the longest continuous stretch of quadruple track in Japan, 120.9 km from here through Kyoto and Osaka to Nishi-Akashi. Minami-kusatsu, the next stop, is a 1994 infill the city paid most of the cost of, and it repaid that by overtaking Kusatsu to become the busiest station in Shiga. After Zeze and Otsu the line leaves the lake, tunnels through to Yamashina, and drops into Kyoto — where, confusingly, only the trains heading back the other way are announced as the Biwako Line at all.

Why play it

This line is a small museum of readings that punish guessing. 膳所 is Zeze, one of the most famous hard-to-read station names in the country. 安土 is あづち, with a づ. 稲枝 is Inae, 河瀬 is Kawase and not Kawaze, 栗東 is りっとう with the sokuon, and 米原 is まいばら even though the town that used to surround it was まいはら. There is a romanization oddity too: JR West hyphenates every other 近江 station on its network, but prints 近江八幡 solid as Omihachiman, following the city's own English name. And it is a long run in an unusual place: 23 stations, of which 21 are in Shiga rather than Kyoto Prefecture. It is filed under Kyoto because Kyoto is where it ends and where its trains belong, not because it spends much time there.