was a

JR East 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 ...

railway station located in

Minamisanriku is a town in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. , it had an estimated population of 12,516, and a population density of 77 persons per km² in 4504 households. The total area of the town is . It is a resort town on a coastline of wooded islands and moun ...

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 ...

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 ...

. The blue-roofed station platform remained standing after the

2011 tsunami Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 * one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *'' ...

, however the adjacent railway bridge and track (southwest of the station) collapsed. Services have now been replaced by a provisional

bus rapid transit Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

line.

Lines

Utatsu Station was served by the

Kesennuma Line The is a local railway line in Japan, operated by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). It connected Maeyachi Station in the city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi to Kesennuma Station in the city of Kesennuma, Miyagi. The route links the north-eastern ...

, and was located 42.3 rail kilometers from the terminus of the line at

Maeyachi Station is a junction railway station located in the city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Maeyachi Station is served by both the Kesennuma Line and the Ishinomaki Line. It is the southern ...

Station layout

Utatsu Station had two opposed

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...

s connected by a level crossing. The station was unattended.

History

Utatsu Station opened on 11 December 1977. The station was absorbed into the JR East network upon the

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of the

Japan 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) on April 1, 1987. Operations were discontinued after the station was severely damaged by the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

, and rail services have now been replaced by a

line.

Surrounding area

Japan National Route 45 is a national highway of Japan connecting Aoba-ku, Sendai and Aomori, Aomori. Alongside Japan National Route 6, it is a main route along the Pacific coast of eastern Japan. It is paralleled closely by the incomplete Sanriku Expressway between S ...

*Utatsu Town Hall *Utatsu Peninsula Fishdragon Fossil Discovery Area

External links

JR East Station information
* video of a train trip from Utatsu Station to

Shizugawa Station was a JR East railway station located in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The station was destroyed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Services have now been replaced by a provisional bus rapid transit line. Lines Shizugawa S ...

in 2009, passing Shizuhama Station at around 03:45 minutes without stopping. Satellite photos (e.g., in Google Maps) showed that much of the landscape visible in the video was severely affected by the

and most of the railway bridges the train travels across were partly or completely destroyed. The destination Shizugawa Station was obliterated. {{coord, 38.717849, 141.519278, format=dms, display=title, type:railwaystation_region:JP_scale:10000 Railway stations in Miyagi Prefecture Kesennuma Line Railway stations in Japan opened in 1977 Railway stations in Japan closed in 2011