History
Mikage Station (Hanshin, HS 25) opened on 12 April 1905 with the inauguration of the Hanshin Main Line. On 27 July 1929 the station was relocated from the original road-running tracks and elevated. The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 17 January 1995 damaged the line and temporarily closed the station; service between Aoki and Mikage resumed on 11 February 1995, and service between Mikage and Nishi-Nada was restored on 26 June 1995, fully reopening the Hanshin Main Line. A 20 March 2009 timetable change suspended express service west of Nishinomiya, so express trains no longer stopped here. Station numbering was introduced on 1 April 2014. On 19 March 2016 the lone late-night express train began terminating at Mikage and the section limited express's western origin shifted from Aoki to Mikage. The terminating express was discontinued on 17 December 2022, then revived in the 22 February 2025 timetable revision, which also added a new last limited express to Sannomiya later than the express.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Mikage's platforms sit on a sharp curve of radius 140-160 m, so trains are limited to 35 km/h through the station and the gap between car and platform is unusually wide at some points - making Mikage one of Hanshin's most dangerous stations. Rapid limited express trains - including Kintetsu through services from the Nara Line opened with the Hanshin Namba Line in 2009 - cannot stop here because Kintetsu's 21 m-class cars produce gaps too wide for safe boarding, and the platform is too short to extend further. The station's underused waiting area dates from this constraint: it has no climate-controlled waiting room because the platform is too narrow. Beneath the elevated tracks the historic Sawa-no-i well is preserved with a small fountain; it was potable until the 1995 earthquake, after which the Kobe Public Health Office posted a sign declaring the water no longer meets quality standards. The plaza at the south exit is 'Valentine Square', a 1986-onward commemoration of Kobe confectioner Morozoff - which placed a 12 February 1936 advertisement in a Tokyo English-language paper urging chocolate gifts for Valentine's Day, the basis for the claim that this neighbourhood is the birthplace of Japan's Valentine's Day tradition; the city of Kobe obtained permission to use the name from Terni, Italy.