Aratano

History

Aratano Station opened on 27 June 1937 as an intermediate stop on the Mugi Line when Japanese Government Railways extended the line southwards from Kuwano to Awa-Fukui. Freight handling was withdrawn on 1 April 1970, the station was simplified to a contracted-agent arrangement on 1 November 1972, and unstaffed entirely from 1 February 1984. At the 1 April 1987 JNR privatisation it passed to JR Shikoku. A single round trip of the Muroto limited express began stopping at the station on 12 March 2011 and continued until that service was discontinued in the 15 March 2025 timetable change. The original wooden station building was demolished in 2025 and a new waiting room was set up in November of that year.

History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.

Notes

Aratano serves the Anan-Hikari High School Shinno Campus, and the resulting student traffic pushes its daily boarding figure above that of the neighbouring Kuwano Station, which is a scheduled limited-express stop.