History
Keisen Station opened on 9 December 1901 as 'Nagao Station' on the first-generation Kyushu Railway, taking its name from the planned site near present-day Iizuka City. The Kyushu Railway was nationalised on 1 July 1907. On 7 December 1929 the station was absorbed into the Chikuhō Main Line when the Chikuzen-Uchino–Haruda section opened. On 1 December 1940 it was renamed 'Keisen Station'. The Sasaguri Line extension reached Keisen on 25 May 1968, halving the journey time to Hakata. Freight handling ended on 15 November 1982 and parcel handling on 1 February 1984. JR Kyushu took over at the 1 April 1987 privatisation. A Midori-no-Madoguchi opened on 7 March 1989, automatic ticket gates on 20 March 2001, and the Sasaguri Line plus the Chikuhō Main Line east of Keisen were electrified on 6 October 2001, cutting the time to Hakata to as little as 25 minutes. SUGOCA began on 1 March 2009, the new two-storey station building and north-south free passage opened on 21 March 2021, and direct JR Kyushu staffing was restored on 1 October 2023.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Keisen Station was originally meant to be built about 2 km away in the Nagao area of present-day Iizuka, but financial shortfalls — said to involve pressure from local politicians — moved it to its current location, where the railway took the 'Nagao' name with it. To distinguish from the same-spelled Katsuragawa Station on the Tōkaidō Main Line in Kyoto, tickets issued at Keisen are printed with '(筑)桂川'.