History
Kitagata Station is in the Kitagata neighbourhood of Takeo, Saga Prefecture, on JR Kyushu's Sasebo Line, 7.4 km from Hizen-Yamaguchi. The station opened on 5 May 1895 as an intermediate stop on the private Kyushu Railway's westward extension from Takeo (today Takeo-Onsen). When the Kyushu Railway was nationalised on 1 July 1907, the station passed to Japanese Government Railways. On 12 October 1909 it became part of the Nagasaki Main Line, and on 1 December 1934 the line through Kitagata was redesignated the Sasebo Line after a new Nagasaki Main Line route was opened further south. Privatisation of Japanese National Railways on 1 April 1987 transferred control to JR Kyushu. SUGOCA IC service began on 3 October 2024.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
From the 12 March 2011 timetable change until 12 March 2022, Kitagata was used as an operational meeting point for opposing Midori limited expresses, even though they did not stop here for passengers; the practice ended when the adjacent Ōmachi–Takahashi section was doubled on 27 February 2022.