History
Nishiki-chō Station opened on 1 October 1963 as the western terminus of the Japanese National Railways' Gannichi Line when the track was extended from Kawayama, in what is now Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture. JNR's privatisation on 1 April 1987 transferred operations to JR West, which then ceded the line to the third-sector Nishikigawa Railway on 25 July 1987, rebranding the route as the Nishikigawa Seiryū Line. On 7 July 2002, the unused trackbed of the cancelled Gannichi-Hokusen line beyond the station was repurposed as a rubber-tyred sightseeing vehicle route to Sōzukyō Onsen; the service was named "Tokotoko Train" by public vote in 2003. The station is staffed and houses the Nishikigawa Railway corporate headquarters.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
The station was originally built with a curved alignment so that the Gannichi Line could one day be extended onward to Mukaichi and Hinohara in Shimane Prefecture — a plan that was abandoned, leaving the curved track and the cancelled Gannichi-Hokusen roadbed to be reused decades later for the Tokotoko Train sightseeing service.