History
Hata Station opened on 10 May 1922 as Hata Station (波多駅) on the Tsukama Railway's Shimajima Line in what is now Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. Successive renamings of the operator passed it through Tsukama Electric Railway, Matsumoto Electric Railway, and into Alpico Kōtsū from 1 April 2011. The kanji of the name was changed from 波多 to 波田 on 1 May 1956. The station has one ground-level island platform serving two tracks, sitting 11.1 kilometres from the line's Matsumoto terminus. It is uniquely the only station on the Kamikōchi Line where trains pass on the right rather than the left.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Hata is the only station on the Kamikōchi Line where trains pass on the right rather than the left, with three crossings made each day.