History
Yūchi Station opened on 25 June 1924 with the Japanese Government Railways Teshio Kita Line between Wakkanai (now Minami-Wakkanai) and Kabutonuma. The line was renamed the Teshio Line in 1926 and absorbed into the Soya Main Line on 1 April 1930, with operation passing to Japanese National Railways in 1949. Freight handling ended on 15 November 1982, parcel service on 1 February 1984, and the station was unstaffed from 10 November 1984. In July 1985 the original station building was replaced by a converted Yo3500 series brake-van structure standing on the old foundations. JR Hokkaido took over at the 1987 privatisation; following the closure of neighbouring Bakkai in March 2025 Yūchi became the northernmost unstaffed station in Japan.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
A short narrow-gauge "colonisation" railway built for agricultural development ran 9.8 km from behind the station to the lower Yūchi River from 1947 until its 1958 closure; it was horse-drawn throughout its working life.