History
Umegatō Station is on the JR West Sanin Main Line in Atsumogō, Toyoura-chō, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, 658.8 km from the line's origin at Kyoto. It opened on 22 April 1914 as a passenger-only stop of the Chōshū Railway. The Hatabu-and-northward section of the Chōshū Railway was nationalised on 1 June 1925 and became part of the Railway Ministry's Kogushi Line; on 24 February 1933 the Kogushi Line was absorbed into the Sanin Main Line. The station was downgraded from contracted-operations to fully unstaffed on 20 December 1971 along with the end of parcel handling, a simple station building was constructed in March 1978, and on 1 April 1987 JNR's privatisation transferred the station to JR West. It is the westernmost station on Honshū and the westernmost narrow-gauge station in JR West's network.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
Umegatō was the westernmost railway station in Honshū well before it became a tourist draw — JR West eventually leaned into that with a December 2018 "westernmost station" promotion and a 2019 spring Seishun 18 Kippu "Umegatō information" campaign — but actually reaching Honshū's westernmost cape, Bishanohana about 5 km away, still requires a 90-minute walk because no public transport connects them.