History
Shibun Station opened on 1902-08-01 as a freight station of the private Hokkaido Colliery Railway and began carrying passengers and parcels on 1903-04-21. After nationalisation in October 1906 it became a junction on 1914-11-11 with the opening of the Manji Light Railway, later renamed the Manji Line, running east to Manji-Tanzan. A new bypass between Iwamizawa and Shibun opened on 1961-10-01 to ease congestion. Freight handling ended in January 1962, parcels in February 1984, and staff in March 1984. The Manji Line closed entirely on 1985-04-01. JR Hokkaido inherited the station at the 1987 privatisation, and the modest current building was completed in 1988; the station is unstaffed and managed from Iwamizawa.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
In the early 1980s 'Shibun' became a fad among rail collectors and exam-taking students because the kanji evoke 'great ambition' (志) and 'literature/scholarship' (文); platform tickets sold so briskly that some 30 to 40 a day were bought, against a normal monthly total of 30 to 40.