Kaize (Nagano)

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

Kaize Station opened on 11 March 1919 as the passenger-only Kaize halt with the opening of the Saku Railway's Haguroshita–Koumi section. The Saku Railway was nationalised on 1 September 1934 and the halt was redesignated Kaize Station, becoming part of what was first the Koumi-Kita Line and then the Koumi Line; for some years passenger service from the station was restricted to other Koumi Line stations and the Shin'etsu Main Line stops at Komoro, Ueda, and Nagano. After the line was completed end-to-end on 29 November 1935, Kobuchizawa, Kami-Suwa and Okaya on the Chūō Main Line were added to the station's permitted passenger destinations, and on 1 December 1954 the destination restriction was lifted entirely. With JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 the station passed to JR East.

Kaize is officially "the station farthest from the sea in Japan": a study commissioned by JR East's Nagano branch from the Nagano Prefecture Land and House Investigators Association found that the station sits 112.77 km from the nearest coast (Itoigawa, Niigata), narrowly beating Joshin Dentetsu's Nanjai Station — 112.05 km from the Odawara coast — by about 700 m. A signboard reading "Japan's Station Farthest from the Sea / 112.772 km" stands on the station premises.