History
Kawashima Station opened on 16 April 1889 on the Mito Line as Isayama Station, in what is today the city of Chikusei in Ibaraki Prefecture. It was renamed Kawashima Station only 39 days later, on 25 May 1889. Parcel handling ended on 1 February 1984, and the station passed jointly to JR East and JR Freight on 1 April 1987 at the JNR privatisation. A downburst on 15 July 1996 shattered the waiting-room glazing and injured two people. Scheduled freight services through the station ended on 22 March 1997. Suica IC service began on 18 November 2001, the station building was rebuilt during 2014 and reopened on 17 January 2015, and the Midori no Madoguchi staffed window closed on 16 March 2018.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
Until 1997 a private siding north of Kawashima Station, called the Kamigawara Line, carried cement traffic from Bushū-Haratani on the Chichibu Railway to a Japan Concrete Industries plant; at its busiest the station's three storage tracks were full of hopper cars.