History
Toyohara Station opened on 16 July 1887 as an intermediate stop on the privately-owned Nippon Railway between Kuroiso and Kōriyama, alongside Shirakawa, Yabuki and Sukagawa. Nippon Railway was nationalised in November 1906, and the line was designated part of the Tōhoku Main Line in October 1909. In 1920 the route between Kuroiso and Shirakawa was relocated to avoid steep gradients, and the station moved to its present site. Briefly renamed Shimotsuke-Toyohara in April 1925 to disambiguate from same-named stations in Karafuto and Taiwan, it reverted to its original name on 1 August 1948. The station became unstaffed in 1985 and joined JR East at the 1987 privatisation. A new wooden station building opened in February 2019.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Tochigi's northernmost station sits in such sparsely-populated mountain country that railfans count it among Japan's "secret" main-line stations, despite being on the Tōhoku Main Line.