History
The first Abashiri Station opened on 5 October 1912 as the Railway Bureau extended the Abashiri Line from Notsuke-ushi (now Kitami). After the Senmō Line opened to Sasshiru in 1931 and forced reversing moves, the Abashiri River was straightened and the passenger station relocated about 800 metres west on 1 December 1932; the original site became Hama-Abashiri, a freight depot. The Yūmō East Line (later the Yūmō Line) opened from here on 10 October 1935. Operation passed to Japanese National Railways in 1949 and to JR Hokkaido at the 1987 privatisation. The current building dates from a 12 December 1977 rebuild; the Hama-Abashiri freight branch closed on 1 February 1984 and the Yūmō Line on 20 March 1987.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Abashiri is one of the few JR stations whose name signboard at the entrance is written vertically; the choice was made so that ex-prisoners released from nearby Abashiri Prison and using the station to head home would not be invited to "stray sideways" (yokomichi ni sorenai) into a life of crime.