History
Mōka Station opened on 1 April 1912 in Daichō, Mōka City, Tochigi Prefecture, when the government-built Mōka Light Railway from Shimodate to Mōka entered service; the line was extended onward to Nanai on 11 July 1913. Originally a general station handling both freight and passengers, freight service ended on 1 November 1982 and parcel handling on 1 February 1984. The station was absorbed into JR East at the 1 April 1987 privatisation and transferred to the third-sector Mōka Railway on 11 April 1988, at which point the kana reading was changed from "もうか" to "もおか". A turntable was added on 22 March 1996, the present steam-locomotive-shaped station building opened on 30 March 1997, and the station was named one of the Top 100 Kanto Railway Stations the same year for its role as the core of a major SL-themed complex. The SL Cube-Roku Hall, displaying the JNR Class 9600 #49671 locomotive, opened on 28 April 2013.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-24.
Notes
Mōka's station building is shaped like a steam locomotive, befitting its role as anchor of the Mōka Railway's SL operations, and is part of an open-air rail complex featuring the Class 9600 #49671 and a Class D51 #146 (both pneumatically operable), a Class DE10 diesel, and assorted freight cars and Type-20 railcars on display.