The new Maibara Station has been under construction since Feb. 2006. It will be completed in Aug. 2009.

For a long time, we could not go through the train station from the west exit to east exit and vice versa without having a train ticket. (We had to go around far away through a tunnel.) We can now freely pass through the corridor between the east and west exits from March 21, 2009. This is the last major stage of construction to be completed. A ceremony was held on the 21st to mark the opening, complete with Shiga LakeStars cheerleaders. There are also elevators and escalators.

The city of Maibara is dishing out 4,100,000,000 yen for the new station which sees about 20,000 passengers using it every day.