History
Minatochō Station opened on 21 March 1932 as Columbia-mae Station on the Keihin Electric Railway, named for the adjacent Nippon Columbia Kawasaki factory that closed in 2007. A predecessor 300 metres up the line, Kasen Jimusho-mae, ran briefly from 1929 to 1931. Operations were suspended on 1 July 1943 and resumed on 1 February 1944 with the station rebadged Minatochō, partly because of wartime restrictions on foreign loanwords. It was relocated to its present site on 18 October 1956. An internal level crossing was retired in April 1977, and a north exit was made permanent on 1 March 2013. Refurbishment including barrier-free access and a new station building completed in January 2014, with a Misora Hibari arrival jingle added (KK21).
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Although Keikyū had received planning approval in 1994 to relocate the station underground as part of a Daishi Line grade-separation scheme, that second phase was suspended on 29 March 2016 and formally cancelled by a Kawasaki review committee on 27 October 2017.