History
Chikabumi Station opened on 1899-08-11 as the Chikabumi signal stopping-place on the Hokkaido Government Railway, becoming the Chikabumi signal station in 1905 and a full general station on 1911-01-11. Russia's southward expansion had alarmed the Meiji government, which from June 1899 moved the Seventh Division from Sapporo to Asahikawa; a 4.6 km military spur was built from this station to serve the cantonment in Takasu Village. After the war the spur was retained as a freight branch, extended to Asahikawa-Ōmachi in 1950 and closed on 1978-10-01; its trackbed is now a walkway. The Takikawa–Asahikawa section was electrified at 20 kV AC in 1969 and the Chikabumi–Asahikawa section was double-tracked in 1968. JR Hokkaido and JR Freight inherited the station in 1987, the building was rebuilt in 1989, and the station became fully unstaffed on 2006-07-01. Kitaca IC card service began on 2024-03-16, making this the northernmost Kitaca-enabled station in Japan.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
When IC card Kitaca was rolled out at Chikabumi on 16 March 2024, the station became the northernmost in Japan to accept the card.