History
Befu Station opened as Befu-kitaguchi Station on 19 August 1923 with the inauguration of the Kobe-Himeji Electric Railway. On 1 April 1927 the line was absorbed by Ujigawa Electric, and on 6 June 1933 Ujigawa's railway division separated to form Sanyō Electric Railway. The station was renamed Dentetsu-Befu Station on 1 April 1944 because the surrounding Befu town centre, despite being named 'kitaguchi' (north entrance), had grown to be the area's representative location. It became an express stop on 1 March 1948. Express service was discontinued on 25 March 1984 and replaced by a Takasago-bound limited express stopping at every station west of Higashi-Futami (later merged into the S-Limited Express). The station building moved beneath the elevated tracks on 25 July 1988, and the station was renamed Befu Station on 7 April 1991. From 22 February 2025, all limited express and through limited express trains began stopping here throughout the day.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The station sits on an embankment immediately south of the Sanyō Shinkansen viaduct in Kakogawa, Hyōgo (station number SY 28). The original name 'Befu-kitaguchi' was chosen to distinguish it from Befu-kō Station on the now-defunct Beppu Railway nearby, which until 1984 crossed beneath the elevated tracks. The 1988 reconstruction relocated the station building from the western embankment of the down-line platform - which had been connected to the up-line platform by an in-station footpath crossing - to a single ground-level concourse. The Sanyō version uses the reading 'Be-fu', unlike the more famous Beppu (べっぷ) hot-spring city in Ōita.