Kawase

Weekday departures: 87/day · Sat & holiday departures: 87/day

First / last departure (weekday): 5:10 / 24:34 (00:34 next day)

Busiest hour: 18:00–19:00 (7)

0:00 ─ 23:00

Figures are typical departures in the timetable data, not a live service count.

Timetable data as of 2 May 2026.

• Tokaido Main Line: Minami-Hikone ⇄ Inae

Kawase Station opened on 1 May 1896 as a passenger and freight station on the Japanese Government Railway Tokaido Line between Hikone and Notogawa, in what is now Hikone, Shiga Prefecture. Freight handling was withdrawn on 15 March 1972. The station passed to JR West with the privatisation of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987, and from 13 March 1988 carried the Biwako Line passenger nickname applied to the Maibara-Kyoto section of the Tokaido Main Line. A new station building with a lift and automated turnstiles opened on 14 March 1998, and ICOCA service began on 1 November 2003. Station numbering JR-A15 was introduced in March 2018.

Kawase stands in a residential area of Hikone, with factories immediately alongside and schools and farmland nearby. The station nonetheless falls inside the stretch of the Tōkaidō Main Line marketed as the Biwako Line, and it carries the JR West station number JR-A15.