History
Sōtarō opened on 15 December 1923 as a Railway Ministry signal box at the point where the Hōshū Main Line, building south from Kokura, met the Miyazaki Main Line building north from Miyazaki; the joined route was redesignated the Nippō Main Line on the same day. The signal box was upgraded to a full station on 1 March 1947, and after baggage handling ended in 1972 it became unstaffed. Located 231.0 km from Kokura in the city of Saiki, Ōita, it passed to JR Kyushu at privatisation on 1 April 1987. The remote two-platform mountain station has long seen only a handful of trains; as of the 2024 timetable just one southbound and two northbound services call each day.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Sōtarō is one of Japan's archetypal 'hikyō-eki' — fewer than one boarding per day in fiscal 2015 and only three scheduled stops in the 2024 timetable — yet it is also a special boarding-only stop on JR Kyushu's tourist train 36 plus 3 on its Saturday 'Green Route' run.