History
Takajō Station opened on 1 April 1914 as an intermediate stop on the Hōshū Main Line, on the day Japanese Government Railways extended the southern terminus of the line from Ōita to Kōzaki. The track had been inherited from the privately-owned Kyushu Railway, which had been nationalised on 1 July 1907. The Hōshū Main Line was renamed the Nippō Main Line on 15 December 1923, placing Takajō 138.0 km from Kokura. With the privatisation of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987, the station passed to JR Kyushu. JR Kyushu had planned to convert Takajō into an unstaffed remotely-managed "Smart Support Station" by 17 March 2018, but opposition from users postponed the change pending accessibility improvements; the conversion finally took effect on 1 July 2023. The station consists of an island platform reached by a footbridge that doubles as a public free-passage between streets on either side of the track.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
The station's footbridge doubles as a free public passageway linking the streets on both sides of the track, an arrangement intended to keep the railway from severing the surrounding Ōita neighbourhoods.