History
Kitami Station opened on 25 September 1911 as Nokkeushi, the eastern terminus of the Railway Bureau's Abashiri Line extension from Rikubetsu. Further extensions to Abashiri (October 1912) and the opening of the Yūbetsu Light Railway (November 1912) quickly made it a junction. Renamed Kitami on 1 October 1942 when the surrounding town received city status, the station was rebuilt as a two-storey reinforced-concrete depot in 1983 and underwent Japan's first below-ground continuous grade-separation works in 1977. It became a JR Hokkaido and JR Freight station at the 1987 privatisation. The former Chihoku Highland Railway Furusato Ginga Line ran from here to Ikeda until its closure on 21 April 2006; freight tied to local onion harvesting still keeps a seasonal goods yard alongside the passenger building.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Kitami is the northernmost station in Japan that is staffed all day long, and the surrounding goods yard handles tamanegi onions in such volume that freight trains run only in autumn and winter.