History
Kashikojima Station opened on 23 July 1929 as the terminus of the Shima Electric Railway, when the operator extended its line beyond the originally planned terminus at Ugatahama (now Ugata) onto what was then the uninhabited island of Kashikojima. Wartime consolidation merged Shima Electric into Mie Kotsu on 11 February 1944; the railway business was spun off to Mie Electric Railway on 1 February 1964 and absorbed by Kintetsu on 1 April 1965. The station became a true terminus on 1 July 1969 when the short extension to Shinjukō was abandoned, and the current Tōgō Murano-designed station building opened on 1 March 1970 alongside the line's regauging to standard gauge. Major platform reconfiguration followed in September 1993.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Kashikojima is the only large-railway station in Japan located on a natural island; from November 2009 to June 2012 it had a Humboldt penguin named Shima-chan as honorary stationmaster, on loan from the nearby Shima Marineland aquarium.