History
Nishi-Kagura Station opened on 1 September 1899 as Bebetsu Station on the Hokkaido Government Railway Tokachi Line, on the section newly extended from Asahikawa to Biei. The line passed to the Railway Operations Bureau in 1905, was renamed the Kushiro Line in 1909, and became part of the Furano Line on 10 November 1913. The station was renamed Nishi-Kagura on 1 October 1942 on the grounds that the old name 'Bebetsu' sounded awkward. Freight handling ended in November 1982 and parcel handling in February 1984; the station was unstaffed under simplified outsourcing from 1 November 1986, inherited by JR Hokkaido in 1987, rebuilt in 1989, and fully unstaffed in 1999.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station was renamed in 1942 specifically because officials judged that the older name 'Bebetsu' sounded awkward to Japanese ears — the same reasoning used a few decades earlier to rename the once-similarly-named Toyoura Station.