History
Koishihama Station opened on 16 October 1985 as a station of the Sanriku Railway Minami-Rias Line in what is now Ōfunato, Iwate, originally written with the kanji 小石浜 ("small-stone beach"). On 20 July 2009 the name was rewritten as 恋し浜, a homophone meaning "beloved beach." The 11 March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami swept away part of the line, suspending service; trains returned on 3 April 2013 with the reopening of the Sakari-to-Yoshihama segment. On 23 March 2019 the Minami-Rias, Yamada and Kita-Rias segments were merged into the through-running Rias Line, and Koishihama became an intermediate stop.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The renaming from 小石浜 to 恋し浜 in 2009 was a tourism rebrand; the new spelling, homophonous with the original, makes the station name read as "Beloved Beach."