The is a railway line in Japan, operated by the

East Japan Railway Company The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters are ...

(JR East). It connects

Kogota Station is a junction railway station in the town of Misato, Miyagi, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Kogota Station is served by three lines: the Tōhoku Main Line, the Ishinomaki Line, and the Rikuu East Line. It is locat ...

in Misato,

Miyagi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Miyagi Prefecture has a population of 2,305,596 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Miyagi Prefecture borders Iwate Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefecture to the nort ...

to Shinjō Station in Shinjō,

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

, acting as a connector between the

Tōhoku Main Line The Tōhoku Main Line ( ja, 東北本線, ) is a long railway line in Japan operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The line starts from Tokyo Station in Chiyoda, Tokyo and passes through such cities as Saitama, Utsunomiya, Fukush ...

Ōu Main Line The is a railway line in Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It connects Fukushima Station through Akita Station to Aomori Station. Since the opening of the Yamagata Shinkansen on July 1, 1992, the Fukushima–Yamag ...

, and

Tōhoku Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line, connecting Tokyo with Aomori in Aomori Prefecture in a route length of , making it Japan's longest Shinkansen line. It runs through the more sparsely populated Tōhoku region of Japan's main is ...

in the southern

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

, and provides access to north-western Miyagi Prefecture and north-eastern Yamagata Prefecture. Its name refers to the ancient

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

of Mutsu (陸奥) and Dewa (出羽) (or alternatively, the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

provinces of

Rikuzen is an old province of Japan in the area of Miyagi Prefecture (excluding Igu, Katta District and Watari Districts) and parts of Iwate Prefecture (specifically Kesen District). Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Rikuzen''" in . It was some ...

(陸前) and Uzen (羽前)), which the line connects.

History

The Kogota - Naruko-Onsen section was opened in stages between 1913 and 1915, with the Shinjo - Naruko-Onsen section opened in stages between 1915 and 1917. CTC signalling was commissioned in 1983, and freight services ceased in 1987. The line celebrated its 100th anniversary on November 3, 2017, with a special train hauled by

JNR Class DE10 The is a class of Japanese C-B wheel arrangement diesel-hydraulic locomotives. 708 locomotives were built between 1966 and 1978. , 138 locomotives remained in operation. Variants DE10-0 subclass 158 DE10-0 locomotives were built with steam h ...

locomotives.

Former connecting lines

* Nishi-Furukawa station - A

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

line ultimately extending to Tori-Machi, and connecting to the

Senzan Line The is a railway line in Japan. Part of the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) system, it runs from Sendai Station in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture to Uzen-Chitose Station in Yamagata, Yamagata Prefecture, acting as a connector between the T� ...

at Toshogu station, was opened by the Sendai City Council between 1922 and 1929. It closed in sections between 1937 and 1960.

Station list

Symbols: * ｜ - Single-track * ◇ - Single-track; station where trains can pass * ∨ - Single-track section starts from this point

Rolling stock

* KiHa 110 series DMUs

Past

* Resort Minori

References

External links

Resort Minori - JR East (Wayback Machine)
Lines of East Japan Railway Company Rail transport in Yamagata Prefecture Rail transport in Miyagi Prefecture 1067 mm gauge railways in Japan Railway lines opened in 1913 1913 establishments in Japan {{Japan-rail-line-stub