History
Aino Station opened on 20 June 1911 as Aino-mura Station (愛野村駅) on the Shimabara Railway in what is today Aino-machi-kō, Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture. On 5 May 1923 the Onsen Light Railway also began running services to Aino-mura; that company became Onsen Railway on 31 May 1924 and was transferred to Unzen Railway on 2 October 1933 before being abolished on 16 August 1938. The station was renamed Aino on 5 November 1960. It became a contracted station on 1 August 1971, freight handling ended on 30 September 1984, and in September 1986 a new church-style station building with a pointed roof was completed. On 14 March 2010 the station was repainted in its current scheme.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
'Aino' is a 1889 portmanteau coined when Aizu and Noi villages of Minamitakaki District merged to form Aino. On the same line is Azuma Station: read together, 'Aino - Azuma' resembles 'Aishi no waga-zuma' ('my beloved wife'), giving Aino its modern reputation as the 'Sacred Place of Love' for couples and devoted spouses. The Shimabara Railway sells a 'Saiai Ninteishō' (Beloved Certificate) — packaged with a one-way ticket from Aino to Azuma — at both stations. The 2009 station-building repaint was a joint design competition with the Japan Romanticist Association based on a Nagasaki student entry. A monument marking the former Onsen Light Railway Aino-mura station and a 'Smiling Statue' stand in the forecourt. From here Shimatetsu Bus routes serve the western half of the Shimabara Peninsula — even before the Shimabara Railway line was cut back in 2008, the bus to Kazusa could be quicker than the rail route.