History
Higashi-Nagahara Station opened on 20 December 1940 as a Ministry of Railways station, originally built and paid for entirely by Shōwa Denkō to ferry workers to its plant directly across the tracks. A two-tier switchback siding once ran from the station into the plant grounds. Located in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, the station stands 57.2 kilometers from Kōriyama on what is now JR East's Ban'etsu West Line. Parcel traffic ran briefly between 1972 and 1984, the station passed to JR East at the 1 April 1987 privatization, and the last staff posting from Aizu-Wakamatsu ended on 19 March 1993, leaving the station unstaffed.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station and its access were funded entirely by Shōwa Denkō to move workers to the plant on the opposite side of the tracks, and the abandoned two-tier switchback to that plant is still visible from the platform.