History
Kogane Station opened on 1925-08-20 as Okonshibe Station, a general station of the Ministry of Railways, when the Chōrin East Line was completed between Wanishi (now Higashi-Muroran) and Date-Monbetsu. The line became the Chōrin Line in September 1928 and was absorbed into the Muroran Main Line on 1931-04-01. The station was renamed Kogane on 1952-11-15. Freight handling ended on 1960-10-15, and the station was unstaffed and simply commissioned on 1980-05-15 when CTC signalling was extended over the line. JR Hokkaido inherited the station at the 1987 privatisation, the current weatherboarded building dates from a 1988 rebuild, and the simple commission lapsed at an unrecorded later date leaving the station fully unstaffed.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station was renamed from Okonshibe to Kogane in 1952; according to the 1973 JNR Hokkaido publication 'Origins of Hokkaido Station Names', the original name was changed simply because the characters were too difficult to read.