History
Higashi-Niitsu Station opened on 20 February 1952 on the Ban’etsu West Line in what is now Akiha Ward, Niigata, as a stop of the Japanese National Railways. It passed to JR East at the 1987 privatisation of JNR. A platform extension was completed on 18 February 1989 and put into service on 9 March that year. The current station building, with only a waiting-room function, dates from 24 January 2001 and is unattended. The roof carries a steam-locomotive-shaped weather vane that reflects the area’s railway-town heritage. Suica became usable here on 15 March 2008 with the expansion of the Niigata suburban zone. The station sits 172.8 km from the line’s terminus at Kōriyama.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station roof carries a steam-locomotive-shaped weather vane, a nod to the area’s history as a railway town once dotted with oil fields and refineries.