History
Kikugawa Station opened on 16 April 1889 as Horinouchi Station when the government railway between Shizuoka and Hamamatsu came into service. A horse-drawn tramway, the Jōnan / Horinouchi line, ran into the station forecourt from 1899 until it closed in 1935. The station took its present name on 10 April 1956. Freight handling ended in 1975 and parcel handling in 1985, and JR Central inherited the station at the 1987 privatisation. TOICA acceptance began in 2008. A pedestrian deck and an overhead concourse, replacing the level station building, open on 29 March 2026, turning Kikugawa into a bridge station serving one side platform and one island platform.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
The famously photogenic 400-metre-radius curves between Kikugawa and Kanaya exist because period-correct engineering could not build the grades and tunnels needed for a more direct route via the old Tōkaidō Nissaka post town.