History
Tomamu Station, at 537.13 m above sea level, is the highest passenger station in service on JR Hokkaido. It opened on 1981-10-01 as Sekishō-Kōgen Station when the Sekishō Line opened. Although the site had originally been planned as a signal post during the line's authorisation in 1966, plans shifted to a passenger station after a 1975 review, partly to support a third-sector ski-resort scheme that became 'Alpha Resort Tomamu' in 1983. The station was renamed Tomamu on 1987-02-01, with the adjacent Tomamu Signal Box becoming Horoka Signal Box; the JNR privatisation took effect that April. A 'Tomamu Travel Centre' booth inside the resort handled bookings from 1991 until 2015. From 2019 every regular limited-express stopped here, until the 2025-03-15 timetable change made the late-night Ozora 12 and Tokachi 9 pass through.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The provisional planning name was Kami-Tomamu; the opening name 'Sekishō-Kōgen' ('Sekishō Highlands') was a coined tourist-friendly title, replaced in 1987 by Tomamu to match the local district and ski-resort name. The base word comes from the Ainu tomam ('marsh').