Kitami Station (喜多見駅; Kitami-eki) is a minor stop on the

Odakyu Electric Railway , commonly known as Odakyū, is a major railway company based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for its ''Romancecar'' series of limited express trains from Tokyo to Odawara, Enoshima, Tama New Town, and Hakone. The Odakyu Electric Railway Company fo ...

Odawara Line straddling the border between

Setagaya is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood and administrative district within the ward. The ward calls itself Setagaya City in English. Its official bird is the azure-winged magpie, its flower is the fringed orch ...

Ward and

Komae is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. It is one of 30 municipalities in the western portion of Tokyo known as the Tama Area. , the city had an estimated population of 83,218, and a population density of 13,000 per ...

City in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is the 14th station, about , from

Shinjuku Station is a major railway station in the Shinjuku and Shibuya wards in Tokyo, Japan. In Shinjuku, it is part of the Nishi-Shinjuku and Shinjuku districts. In Shibuya, it is located in the Yoyogi and Sendagaya districts. It is the world's busiest rai ...

. It was used by an average of about 32,000 passengers daily in 2005. It is serviced by local service and section semi-express trains; all other trains bypass the station.

Layout

The new station consists of two elevated side platforms and four tracks. Express trains typically bypass the station on the two innermost tracks while local trains typically stop at the station on the two outermost tracks. Kitami station's facilities are located on the ground floor. There are commercial and food establishments under the train tracks on either side of the concourse.

History

Kitami Station was opened on 1 April 1927. Throughout the 1990s it was extensively redeveloped as part of the Odakyu Line's track doubling project. Previous to the redevelopment, the platforms were on ground level and linked by an overhead bridge.

Station numbering Station numbering is a sign system which assigns station codes consisting of a few letters and numbers to train stations. It aims to facilitate navigation for foreign travelers not familiar with the local language by using globally understood ch ...

was introduced in January 2014 with Kitami being assigned station number OH15.

Surroundings

The station lies in a residential area. There is a koban immediately outside the North Exit and a supermarket to the south. A neighbourhood shopping street stretches south. The Odakyu Railway's Kitami train depot lies to the east, alongside the Nogawa river. There is a Catholic

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

to the north of the station. It was built in the early 20th century by Tsurumatsu Toshimitsu, the founder of Odakyu, for his daughter. The name of the area, ''Kitami'', is thought to originate from an ancient

Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...

word meaning "flat, wooded place".

References

Railway stations in Japan opened in 1927 Odakyu Odawara Line Stations of Odakyu Electric Railway Kitami Station {{Tokyo-railstation-stub