Sendai (Kagoshima)

History

Sendai Station opened on 1 June 1914 as Sendaimachi Station (川内町駅, Sendaimachi-eki) when the Railway Bureau's Sendai Line was extended from Sendaimachi to Kushikino. The line was extended westward from Nishikata to Sendaimachi on 1 July 1922, and on 20 October 1924 the Miyanojō Line opened between Sendaimachi and Hiwaki. The station was renamed Sendai (川内駅, Sendai-eki) on 1 October 1940. The station's facilities were repeatedly destroyed in the Sendai air raids of 27 and 30 July 1945, and the Sendai River bridge was destroyed on 1 August 1945 (restored 9 September). On 1 June 1949 an Imperial train called here during Emperor Shōwa's post-war Imperial tour. The station was rebuilt on 14 June 1959. Container freight handling began on 1 October 1966 and a Midori no Madoguchi opened on 1 October 1968. The Miyanojō Line was abolished on 10 January 1987, and on 1 April 1987 JR Kyushu and JR Freight succeeded the station from JNR. Work on a third-generation station building started on 29 June 2002. On 13 March 2004, when the Kyushu Shinkansen Shin-Yatsushiro–Kagoshima-Chūō section opened, Sendai became a shinkansen stop and a new station building entered service; on the same day, the Kagoshima Main Line between Yatsushiro and Sendai was transferred from JR Kyushu to the Hisatsu Orange Railway, making Sendai a JR/Hisatsu Orange boundary station. SUGOCA support began on the Kagoshima Main Line on 1 December 2012. The Kawauchi-eki Travel Centre closed on 30 March 2018, and on 25 June 2022 the Express Reservation service launched on the Kyushu Shinkansen at the station. On 1 October 2023 the conventional-line operation reverted from JR Kyushu Service Support entrustment to direct JR Kyushu management.

History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.

Notes

Sendai is a hub for three operators — JR Kyushu (Kyushu Shinkansen and Kagoshima Main Line), JR Freight, and Hisatsu Orange Railway — and is the only Kyushu Shinkansen station that is not elevated. From March 2004 to September 2022, it was the westernmost station on the entire Japanese shinkansen network, until the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen opened on 23 September 2022 and Nagasaki took the title. Sendai shares its reading with Sendai Station (仙台駅) in Miyagi — the only case of two shinkansen stops with identical pronunciation. In FY2024, JR Kyushu's daily boarding figure here was 2,792 passengers, third among the company's Kagoshima Prefecture stations after Tanigashira.