Hakubaoike

Departure data for this station is not available on this site.

Hakuba-Ōike Station opened on 1 December 1947 as the Japanese National Railways' Kawauchishimo temporary boarding point, after residents formed a petition league just after the Second World War and lobbied railway authorities in Tokyo and Niigata, including the future prime minister Eisaku Satō, then a vice-minister at the Ministry of Transport. It was promoted to a full station and renamed Hakuba-Ōike on 25 September 1948, the old name having been judged too commonplace and the new one taken from the comparatively well-known lake near the summit of Mount Hakuba-Norikura, west of the station. The station building was rebuilt and moved to its present site in December 1967, timed to the electrification of the Ōito Line to Minami-Otari on 20 December. It became a contracted-operation station on 5 June 1980, and on 25 March 1983 parcel handling ended and the last staff were withdrawn, with ticket sales continuing under a local simplified commission. With the 1 April 1987 privatisation of Japanese National Railways the station passed to JR East. Services were suspended by the Nagano Prefecture Kamishiro Fault earthquake of 22 November 2014, and the station reopened on 7 December 2014 when the Hakuba–Minami-Otari section resumed operation. It stands in Chikuni, Otari, Nagano Prefecture, and has a single ground-level side platform serving one bi-directional track.

The original provisional stop was named "Kawachi-shimo" after the local place name, but this was considered "hackneyed" when it was upgraded to a full station, and the name of Lake Hakuba-Ōike, located near the summit of Mount Hakuba-Norikura west of the station, was adopted instead.