History
Kawayama Station opened on 1 November 1960 as the terminus of the Gannichi Line, then a Japanese National Railways branch extended out from Kawanishi. The line was pushed further on 1 October 1963 to Nishiki-chō, making Kawayama a through stop. Freight handling was scaled back from 1971 — following the closure of the Nippon Mining Kawayama mine — and ended outright by October 1974. Control of the station passed briefly to JR West at the JNR privatisation on 1 April 1987 before being handed to the third-sector Nishikigawa Railway on 25 July 1987. The line was renamed the Nishikigawa Seiryū Line and Kawayama lies 27.9 km from Kawanishi.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
Disused sidings here still hold a derelict semaphore signal and switch lever, relics of when Kawayama was a passing loop for ore trains from the nearby Kawayama mine.