Akabira

Departure data for this station is not available on this site.

Akabira Station opened on 10 November 1913 as Kami-Akabira on what is now the Nemuro Main Line, in a region with three large coal mines — Toyosato (Shōwa Denkō), Akama (Hokutan) and Akabira (Sumitomo). The station was renamed Akabira on 15 June 1943. At the peak in the early 1960s the three colliery loading sidings sent nearly 200 loaded coal cars a day out of the station, and in fiscal 1960 Akabira's freight dispatch tonnage briefly exceeded that of Umeda Station to top the country. As the mines closed — Toyosato in 1967, Akama in 1973 — freight traffic faded; JR Hokkaido and JR Freight inherited the station at the 1 April 1987 privatisation, freight working ceased in 1989 when the siding to the Sumitomo colliery was removed and the freight registration was struck, and the Midori no Madoguchi window closed on 25 March 2016.

In fiscal 1960 Akabira's freight dispatch tonnage briefly overtook that of Osaka's Umeda Station, putting this small coal-mining stop at the top of the entire Japanese network for one year.