History
Kanose Station opened on 1 November 1914 with the completion of the Railway Agency's Iwakoshi Line between Nozawa and Tsugawa. The station was originally not planned, but was added through the influence of Hara Takashi — then Minister of Home Affairs and a vice-president of Furukawa Mining, which had operated the nearby Kusakura copper mine since the Meiji era. Heavy industrial traffic followed after Tōshin Electric began building a hydropower plant nearby in 1925, with a chemical plant (later Shōwa Denkō) built once the power station was completed in 1928; daily station traffic peaked at over 4,000 boardings in the 1950s. Goods declined as production shifted away from carbide-based processes. The dedicated-line (senyō-sen) freight train was abolished in March 1985, general freight handling ended on 20 October 1986, and the station became unstaffed (under simplified consignment) the following month. It passed to JR East on 1 April 1987, and the passing loop was removed in November 1991.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
In the mid-twentieth century, Shōwa Denkō's chemical works next to the station made Kanose a true company town; even in 1961 the freight handled here exceeded 1,100 tonnes a day, much of it limestone railed in from Aoumi on the Hokuriku Main Line.