History
Arato Station, the terminus of the Flower Nagai Line in Shirataka, Yamagata, opened on 1923-04-22 when the Nagai Line was extended from Ayukai. Freight handling ended on 1981-03-10 and parcel handling on 1984-02-01. The station passed briefly to JR East with the 1987 privatization of Japanese National Railways before being transferred to the third-sector operator Yamagata Railway on 1988-10-25. The station became unstaffed on 1996-04-01, was selected as one of the Tōhoku Top 100 Stations in 2002, and reopened with a renovated station building on 2003-04-20. Yamagata Railway's rolling-stock depot adjoins the station, housing the YR-880 series cars.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The Mogami River bridge just beyond the station — a rare Meiji-era double Warren truss — is designated a Civil Engineering Heritage site by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.