Doai

Weekday departures: 14/day · Sat & holiday departures: 12/day

First / last departure (weekday): 6:38 / 21:01

Busiest hour: 8:00–9:00 (2)

0:00 ─ 23:00

Figures are typical departures in the timetable data, not a live service count.

Timetable data as of 3 May 2026.

• Joetsu Line: Tsuchitaru ⇄ Yubiso

Doai Station opened on 19 December 1936 on the Jōetsu Line, originally a single-track route through the 9.7 km Shimizu Tunnel that linked Minakami in Gunma with Echigo-Yuzawa in Niigata. When the line was double-tracked in 1967 using the much longer Shin-Shimizu Tunnel, the new northbound platform was placed about 70 m underground inside the tunnel, leaving the southbound platform at ground level beside the station building. A space for an escalator was reserved next to the underground staircase, but it has never been fitted. The station has been unstaffed since 1985, and in 2020 the glamping site "DOAI VILLAGE" and the in-station café "mogura" opened, drawing tourists.

Doai is the deepest railway station in Japan: its northbound platform sits about 70 m underground in the middle of the Shin-Shimizu Tunnel, reached only by a roughly ten-minute descent of 462 steps (486 in total counting the 24 steps in the connecting passageway), with no lift or escalator. The nickname "Japan's Number One Mole Station" comes from this descent.