History
Ajigaura Station opened on 7 July 1928 as a station of the Minato Railway. With wartime transport consolidation on 1 August 1944 it passed to Ibaraki Kōtsū. Carload freight ended on 1 October 1970. On 1 April 2008 Ibaraki Kōtsū transferred the Minato Line to the third-sector Hitachinaka Seaside Railway, and Ajigaura became one of its stations. On 19 June 2021 a small shrine — the Hitachinaka Kaiun Tetsudō Jinja — was built within the station precinct, enshrining the retired KiHa 222 diesel railcar as its deity. The platform's effective length of seven cars survives from the era of direct Ajigaura express services from Ueno, and a 2010 refurbishment raised the in-use side of the platform (covering three-cars' length) and added a barrier-free ramp.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The shrine inside the station — Hitachinaka Kaiun Tetsudō Jinja, dedicated to the retired KiHa 222 railcar — is venerated for traffic safety and longevity, on the strength of KiHa 222's 44 accident-free service years; its torii gate is built from repurposed railway track.