History
Chikata Station opened on 21 July 1914 at the opening of the Ryōbi Light Railway, the predecessor of the Fukuen Line. The Ryōbi Light Railway was renamed Ryōbi Railway on 26 June 1926. On 1 September 1933 the Ryōbi Railway's Ryōbi-Fukuyama–Fuchū-machi section was nationalised, and the station became part of the Railway Ministry's Fukuen Line. With the opening of the Fukuen North Line on 15 November 1933, the original Fukuen Line was renamed the Fukuen South Line, and Chikata Station became part of it. On 28 July 1938 the section from Fukuyama to Shiomachi was fully through-connected, and the Fukuen South Line became part of the unified Fukuen Line. Freight handling ended on 1 April 1952, parcel handling ended on 10 December 1970, and the station became simplified-entrusted. With the privatisation of JNR on 1 April 1987, the station passed to JR West.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Chikata is a stop-style ground-level station with a single side platform on the left when facing Fuchū. Because it is a single-track station, both Fukuyama-bound and Fuchū-bound trains share the same platform. The unstaffed station has no station building proper, only an access onto the platform directly, and an automatic ticket machine inside the platform shelter. The ticket machine was upgraded to a new model when ICOCA was rolled out in the Okayama area, but the ICOCA loading holder is omitted since Chikata is outside the ICOCA service zone.