History
The station opened on 11 October 1913 as Take Station, the western terminus of the coastal-route Sendai Line, and was renamed Nishi-Kagoshima Station on 17 October 1927 when the Sendai Line was incorporated into the Kagoshima Main Line. The original 1913 station building was destroyed in air raids during World War II. When the Kyushu Shinkansen partially opened from Shin-Yatsushiro to here on 13 March 2004, the station was renamed Kagoshima-Chūō. The conventional-line platforms are at grade with three island platforms and six tracks, while the Shinkansen platforms sit on an elevated third level at right angles, with two islands and four tracks. As Japan's southernmost Shinkansen terminus, it is also the start of through services to Shin-Ōsaka via the Mizuho and Sakura.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Notes
Although the Kagoshima Main Line officially terminates one stop further at Kagoshima Station, the line's name actually reached here on 17 October 1927 — before the original terminus was renamed.