is a railway station in

Abashiri, Hokkaido is a city located in Okhotsk Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. Abashiri is known as the site of the Abashiri Prison, a Meiji-era facility used for the incarceration of political prisoners. The old prison has been turned into a museum, but the city ...

, Japan, operated by the

Hokkaido Railway Company The is one of the constituent companies of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group), and is often referred to using its official abbreviation of . It operates intercity and local rail services in Hokkaido, Japan. The company introduced Kitaca, a sm ...

(JR Hokkaido), located. It is the main railway station in the city. Abashiri Station comes first in an alphabetical list of Japanese railway stations (

Zushi·Hayama Station is a railway station on the Keikyu Zushi Line in Zushi, Kanagawa, Japan, operated by the private railway operator Keikyu. This station comes last in an alphabetical list of Japanese railway stations (Abashiri Station in Hokkaido is first). Line ...

is last).

Lines

Abashiri Station is served by the

Sekihoku Main Line is a railway line in Hokkaido, Japan, operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido) between in Asahikawa and Abashiri Station in Abashiri. The name comes from the first Kanji characters of and , names of ancient provinces along the lin ...

from Shin-Asahikawa, and the

Senmō Main Line The is a Japanese railway line in Hokkaido, operated by Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido), between Higashi-Kushiro Station in Kushiro and Abashiri Station in Abashiri. The name comes from and . In 2008, a dual-mode vehicle was tested on p ...

from Higashi-Kushiro. ''

Okhotsk Okhotsk ( rus, Охотск, p=ɐˈxotsk) is an types of inhabited localities in Russia, urban locality (a urban-type settlement, work settlement) and the administrative center of Okhotsky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located at the mou ...

'' and ''Taisetsu'' limited express trains and ''Shiretoko'' rapid services terminate at this station. The Yūmō Line formerly diverged from here, but the line was closed on March 20, 1987.

Station layout

The station consists of one side platforms and one island platform serving two tracks. There is a ticket office (business hours: 05:30 to 23:00), automatic ticket machines, and a travel centre (business hours: 09:30 to 17:30). Abashiri Station is unusual in having the station name sign at the entrance to the building written vertically instead of horizontally. This was intended to ensure that prisoners released from nearby

Abashiri Prison is a prison in Abashiri, Hokkaido Prefecture that opened in 1890. The northernmost prison in Japan, it is located near the Abashiri River and east of Mount Tento. It holds inmates with sentences of less than ten years. Older parts of the prison ...

and returning to their hometowns from the station would not "revert sideways" (横道にそれない) to a life of crime.

Buses

Abashiri Bus, Abashiri Kōtsū Bus, Akan Bus, Shari Bus and joint operating companies all operate to/from the station. The tourist information centre in Abashiri Station handles tickets for tour buses. The bus stop for services to Higashi Mokoto (Abashiri Kōtsū Bus) does not have a number.

Bus stops

Hokkaidō Chūō Bus, Hokkaidō Kitami Bus and Abashiri Bus operate services from Abashiri Bus Terminal to

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...

History

*October 5, 1912: Abashiri Station was opened by the National Railway Authority. *September 15, 1927: The Railways Ministry opened the Senmō Line (which later became the Senmō Main Line). *December 1, 1932: The passenger station was moved to its present location, and the original station was renamed Hama-Abashiri Station and converted to freight-only. *October 10, 1935: The Yūmō East Line (later the Yūmō Line) opened between Abashiri and Ubaranai. *February 1, 1984: Freight services to Hama-Abashiri were discontinued. *March 20, 1987: The Yūmō Line closed. *April 1, 1987: Abashiri Station was transferred to JR Hokkaido following privatization of the

Japanese National Railways The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987. Network Railways As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pref ...

Adjacent stations

References

External links

JR Hokkaido Abashiri Station information
{{coord, 44, 01, 11.67, N, 144, 15, 14.01, E, region:JP_type:railwaystation, display=title Railway stations in Japan opened in 1912 Railway stations in Hokkaido Prefecture