Yanagigaura

Weekday departures: 87/day · Sat & holiday departures: 87/day

First / last departure (weekday): 4:49 / 23:50

Busiest hour: 6:00–7:00 (9)

0:00 ─ 23:00

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

Timetable data as of 2 May 2026.

• JR Nippo Line: Buzen-Zenkoji ⇄ Buzen-Nagasu

Yanagigaura Station opened on 25 September 1897 as Nagasu (長洲駅), the southern terminus of the line the first-generation Hōshū Railway had laid from Yukuhashi. It was renamed Usa (宇佐駅) on 1 March 1898; the Hōshū Railway was bought by the Kyushu Railway on 3 September 1901, and the Kyushu Railway was itself nationalised on 1 July 1907. On 15 October 1909 the station took its present name, Yanagigaura, and the track was extended onward from here to today's Usa Station on 21 December 1909. A spur serving the Usa Naval Air Group was opened in February 1944, and the station building was rebuilt in 1962. Freight handling stopped on 1 February 1984; parcel handling on 1 November 1986. With JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 the station passed to JR Kyushu. SUGOCA IC-card access was added on 1 December 2012, and an arrival melody ("Welcome to Ōita") was introduced on 1 July 2015 for the Ōita Destination Campaign and kept in use afterwards. The station moved from JR Kyushu Service Support contract operation to direct JR Kyushu operation on 1 October 2023. A station-master post was set up on 1 April 2025 and abolished on 1 April 2026.

Yanagigaura was the terminus of the line when the Nippō line first opened, and it is sung about in the Tetsudō Shōka (Railway Song) Second Collection (Sanyō/Kyushu edition), where the eastern Kyushu leg has the train stopping "at Usa" — the station's name at the time — before turning back to Kokura; it remained the functional end of the line until the track was extended onward on 21 December 1909. It was also home to the Yanagigaura Engine Depot: because of the 25 ‰ grade around Tateishi Pass ahead, trains were re-marshalled and bank engines attached here, a need that ended when the Shin-Tateishi Tunnel opened in 1966.