is a railway station on the

Kyūdai Main Line The is a railway line in Kyushu, Japan, operated by the Kyushu Railway Company (JR Kyushu). It connects Kurume Station, Kurume in Fukuoka Prefecture and Ōita Station, Ōita in Ōita Prefecture. It is also known as the Yufu Kōgen Line. The ...

in Kokonoe,

Ōita Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Ōita Prefecture has a population of 1,136,245 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,340 km2 (2,448 sq mi). Ōita Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northwest, Kumam ...

, Japan.

Lines

The station is served by the

and is located 77.3 km from the starting point of the line at .

Layout

The station consists of two side platforms serving two tracks at grade with a siding. The station building, built in 2015, is a plaster wall traditional Japanese design made to resemble a sake brewery. It houses a waiting area as well as a museum on the history of the town. From the station building, a short flight of steps leads up to platform 1. Access to the opposite side platform is by means of a level crossing. file:Kyushu Railway - Era Station - 01.JPG, The old station building which burned down in 2014.

Adjacent stations

History

The private had opened a track between and in 1915. The Daito Railway was nationalized on 1 December 1922, after which

Japanese Government Railways The Japanese Government Railways (JGR) was the national railway system directly operated by the Japanese Ministry of Railways ( ja, 鉄道省, Tetsudō-shō, ) until 1949. It was a predecessor of Japanese National Railways and the later Japan Rai ...

(JGR) undertook phased westward expansion of the track which, at the time, it had designated as the Daito Line. By 1928, the track had reached . Subsequently, the track was extended further west and Bungo-Mori was opened as the new western terminus on 15 December 1929. On the same day, Era was opened as an intermediate station along the new track. On 15 November 1934, when the Daito Line had linked up with the Kyudai Main Line further west, JGR designated the station as part of the Kyudai Main Line. With the privatization of

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 ...

(JNR), the successor of JGR, on 1 April 1987, the station came under the control of JR Kyushu. In the early hours of 18 January 2014, the original station building built in 1929 and an adjoining residence burned down in a fire. Subsequently, the Kokonoe town authorities rebuilt the station building, opening it in March 2015. The new building also housed a museum featuring exhibits about the local sake brewing industry. In keeping with this theme, the station building was designed to resemble the nearby Yatsushika Brewery, complete with a ball of cedar needles indicating that a fresh batch of sake has been brewed. The building is in ''dozo dzukuri'' style with white plaster ''

namako wall ''Namako'' wall or ''Namako-kabe'' (sometimes misspelled as ''Nameko'') is a Japanese wall design widely used for vernacular houses, particularly on fireproof storehouses by the latter half of the Edo period. The ''namako'' wall is distinguished ...

s'' similar to the station at .

Passenger statistics

In fiscal 2015, there were a total of 14,803 boarding passengers, giving a daily average of 41 passengers. See table 128 Transport situation by individual railway stations (JR Kyushu JR Freight).

Surrounding area

*Yatsushika sake brewery - the station building was designed to resemble this nearby brewery * Higashi-Iida Junior High School * Higashi-Iida Elementary School

References

External links

Era (JR Kyushu)
{in lang, ja Railway stations in Ōita Prefecture Stations of Kyushu Railway Company Railway stations in Japan opened in 1929