Wakkanai Railway Station
| Wakkanai ( 稚 内 ) | |
|---|---|
 View of the train station (July 2012)
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| Data | |
| Location in the network | Terminus |
| Platform tracks | 1 |
| abbreviation | W80 |
| opening | December 26, 1928 |
| location | |
| City / municipality | Wakkanai |
| prefecture | Hokkaidō |
| Country | Japan |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 25 '0 " N , 141 ° 40' 38" E |
| Height ( SO ) | 3 m TP |
| Railway lines | |
| List of train stations in Japan | |
The Wakkanai station ( Japanese 稚 内 駅 , Wakkanai-eki ) is a train station on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō . It is located in the Soya sub-prefecture in the area of the city of Wakkanai and is the northernmost train station in Japan.
links
Wakkanai is a terminus at the northern end of the Soya main line . This leads via Nayoro to Asahikawa and is operated by the company JR Hokkaido . In long-distance traffic, two pairs of express trains Super Sōya (consisting of tilting rail vehicles) are offered daily , which connect the northernmost city of Japan with Asahikawa and the prefecture capital Sapporo . In addition, the Sarobetsu, which is made up of conventional rolling stock, is used on the same connection once a day . Regional trains run to Otoineppu three times a day .
The Wakkanai Ferry Terminal is located about 300 meters east of the train station. Heartland Ferry ferries leave there all year round to the islands of Rebun and Rishiri . In addition, a ferry of the Russian shipping company SASCO runs to Korsakow on the island of Sakhalin in the summer months .
investment
The south-north facing station is located in the city center in the immediate vicinity of the port. Until the abandonment of freight traffic in the mid-1980s, it was a through station with six tracks; to the north of it was a short port railway and several shunting tracks. Today the station only has a single track on a covered side platform . It is part of the KITAColor building complex ( キ タ カ ラ , Kitakara ), which was opened in 2011 and replaced the previous system.
KITAColor includes various traffic, service and leisure facilities. These include a bus terminal for city, regional and long-distance lines operated by the Sōya Bus company , a rest stop ( Michi no eki ), the municipal port authority, the tourist office, a restaurant and café, a convenience shop and souvenir shop, a cultural forum, and a cinema as well as a senior residence. As a result of this new building, the end of the track moved about 100 meters to the south. The previous northernmost point of the Japanese railway network is now marked by a monument on the extended station forecourt. It consists of grooved rails in the asphalt followed by a buffer stop on a gravel superstructure and a marker post. The earlier course of the port railway is also indicated in the asphalt.
Track plan of the station in 1975
Former train station (2009)
Former northernmost point of the Japanese rail network
Interior view (2015)
Bus terminal (2012)
history
From 1922 the city was accessible by rail. Initially, the route did not extend to the port, but to Minami-Wakkanai train station on the southern outskirts. On May 1, 1923, the Ministry of Railways set up a ferry line over La-Pérouse-Straße to Ōdomari (today Korsakow ) on the southern tip of Sakhalin, which was the first time there was an efficient connection to what was then the Karafuto prefecture . The distance between the train station and the jetty was about two kilometers. Passengers to Sakhalin had to walk to the ferry while goods were transported in carts. In order to improve the transfer relations, the Ministry of Railways decided to extend the Sōya main line near the port. On December 26, 1928, the opening of the new station, which was initially called Wakkanai-minato ( 稚 内 港 ).
The station building was oriented towards the harbor and was therefore difficult to reach for the residents of Wakkanai. For this reason, a new wooden building was built on the side of the track facing the city, which went into operation on June 30, 1938. A little later, the work on the pier north of the station, which had begun in 1936, was completed and the Sōya main line was extended by 850 meters to approximately the middle of the pier. The final stop Wakkanai-sanbashi ( 稚 内 桟 橋 ), which opened there on October 1, 1938, was used to transfer to ferries and was operationally part of the port station. The latter was renamed Wakkanai on February 1, 1939. When the Red Army occupied the southern half of Sakhalin shortly before the end of the Pacific War and drove out the Japanese living there, the Wakkanai-sanbashi station lost its function. It was closed on August 25, 1945 and the railway line for passenger traffic was withdrawn to the port station on the same day.
Two decades later, the Japanese State Railways built a new station building and put it into operation on October 1, 1965. A container terminal was set up on March 1, 1970 , but soon afterwards freight traffic quickly lost its importance. For cost reasons, the state railway stopped handling goods on April 1, 1984, and checked baggage on November 1, 1986. As part of the privatization of the state railway, the station passed into the possession of the new company JR Hokkaido on April 1, 1987 . The tracks that were no longer needed gradually disappeared until 2010 only one track remained. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the sharp drop in traffic and, on the other, the construction of the KITAColor complex. This was partially opened on April 3, 2012 and completed a year later.
Adjacent train stations
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| Minami-Wakkanai |
.svg){kind=logo} Soya Main Line, JR Hokkaido |
Wakkanai-sanbashi (1938-1945) |
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Web links
- Station information from JR Hokkaido (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ^ Timetable & fare & rate information. Heartland Ferry, 2016, accessed April 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Japan – Russia ferry routes. byferryfrom2japan.com, 2016, accessed April 4, 2017 .
- ↑ KITAColor website. kitacolor.com, 2017, accessed April 4, 2017 (Japanese).
- ↑ Kazuo Tanaka: 写真 で 見 る 北海道 の 鉄 道 (Hokkaidō's railroad in photos) . tape 1 . Hokkaidō Shinbunsha, Sapporo 2002, ISBN 978-4-89453-220-5 , pp. 266-267 .
- ↑ Tanaka: 写真 で 見 る 北海道 の 鉄 道, pp. 90–91.
- ↑ Satoru Sone: 週刊 歴 史 で め ぐ る 鉄 道 全 路線 国 鉄 ・ JR . tape 20 . Asahi Shimbunsha, Osaka 2009, p. 15 .
- ↑ Sone: 週刊 歴 史 で め ぐ る 鉄 道 全 路線 国 鉄 ・ JR, p. 16.
- ↑ 新 駅 舎 き ょ う 開業. Hokkaidō Shinbun, April 3, 2011.