History
Haranomachi Station opened on 3 April 1898 in what is now the city of Minamisōma, Fukushima, on what would become the Jōban Line. Control passed to JR East at the JNR breakup on 1 April 1987. Train services through the station were suspended after the 11 March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, with the line cut by both the tsunami damage and the Fukushima Daiichi exclusion zone. Limited service between Haranomachi and Sōma resumed on 21 December 2011, the southern Odaka-Haranomachi section reopened on 12 July 2016, and in March 2016 the 651 series and 415-1500 series trainsets stranded at the station since 2011 were finally trucked away for scrapping.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
For five years after the 2011 tsunami, two passenger trains — a four-car 651 series "Super Hitachi" and a 415-1500 series local — sat stranded inside the station before being removed by road for scrapping in March 2016.