History
Arakawaoki Station opened on 25 December 1896 as an elevated stop on what is now the Joban Line, in the city of Tsuchiura, Ibaraki. It is located 57.2 kilometres from the nominal start of the line at Nippori Station and serves two opposed side platforms accessed via a footbridge and a Midori no Madoguchi staffed ticket office. Operation of the station passed to JR East on 1 April 1987 at the privatisation of Japanese National Railways. On 23 March 2008 a stabbing spree in the passageway linking the station to a nearby shopping street killed one person and injured seven others, an incident that drew nationwide attention.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station saw one of the deadlier random-attack incidents of the late 2000s when a 24-year-old man went on a knife rampage in its connecting passageway on 23 March 2008.