History
Sakaida Station opened on 1 November 1917 on the Rikuu East Line in what is now the town of Mogami, Yamagata, 55.3 kilometres from the line's terminus at Kogota. Freight and small-parcel handling ended on 30 November 1971, and the station was fully unstaffed from 7 March 1983. It became part of East Japan Railway Company (JR East) on 1 April 1987 with the privatisation of Japanese National Railways. The passing siding was removed on 20 December 1999, leaving a single side platform; the older opposite-side platform remains in place but unused. The station sits in a small cutting that hides it from the surrounding road and houses.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Japan's central watershed runs through the small square just outside Sakaida Station, where a flat divide visibly sends one stream toward the Sea of Japan via the Mogami River and another toward the Pacific via the Kitakami River — a feature unusual enough that a granite marker was installed in May 2015.