History
Fukushima Station opened on 15 December 1887 as a general-traffic station on Nippon Railway's Kōriyama–Sendai segment. A Western-style second-generation station building entered service in 1903, Nippon Railway was nationalised in 1906, and the line was designated the Tōhoku Main Line in 1909. The Shindatsu Tramway (later the Fukushima Kōtsū Iizaka-East Line) reached the station in 1918, and what is now the Iizaka Line followed in 1924. The third-generation building was completed on 8 December 1962. The Tōhoku Shinkansen opened on 23 June 1982 and the Yamagata Shinkansen — a mini-shinkansen sharing the Ōu Line on standard-gauge — branched off from here from 1 July 1992. The Abukuma Express extended into the station on 1 July 1988. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake caused damage, and JR East's flagship "Eco Station" features (solar panels, ground-source HVAC) were installed in April 2015.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Because the Ōu Line section from Fukushima to Shinjō was re-gauged to 1,435 mm standard gauge to allow Yamagata Shinkansen through-running, it can no longer interconnect with the 1,067 mm Tōhoku Main Line — so although both lines share the station, no conventional train can run from Fukushima city onto the Yamagata route without a transfer. At Fukushima the Tōhoku Shinkansen's "Yamabiko" and the Yamagata Shinkansen's "Tsubasa" couple and uncouple here.