History
Karasuyama Station is the terminus of the JR East Karasuyama Line, a 20.4 km branch from Hōshakuji, in Minami 2-chōme, Nasukarasuyama City, Tochigi Prefecture, and is the easternmost JR station in the prefecture. It opened on 15 April 1923, dropped freight service on 1 June 1979, transferred to JR East at the 1 April 1987 privatisation, and joined the Tokyo suburban zone on 14 March 2009. In October 2011 the station was converted to a single running track; a pantograph-fed 1,500 V DC overhead charging post was completed in February 2012 to supply the EV-E301 "Accum" battery EMU, which entered scheduled service from March 2014. The current single-storey station building opened on 15 March 2014, the Midori no Madoguchi ticket office closed on 31 July 2013, and the station became completely unstaffed on 15 March 2025 after the last on-site ticket machines were retired.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
Karasuyama is the only JR East station that broadcasts a "departure-warning melody" three minutes before each train, with different tunes for morning (Edelweiss), midday ("L'amour est bleu"), evening (Yūyake Koyake) and night (Furusato); since July 2022 the lineup has been replaced year-round by the local Yamaage Festival ohayashi melody. On 22–23 July 1979 the station hosted JNR's mystery train "Ginga Tetsudō 999" and was decorated as "Andromeda Station".