Kawabata

No publicly available departure data for this station.

Kawabata opened on 1 August 1894 as a general station of the Hokkaido Coal & Railway between Oiwake and Momijiyama (now Shin-Yūbari), set up to handle volcanic-ash extraction and timber shipping. The station was moved about 400 m toward Oiwake on 16 January 1900. The railway was nationalised on 1 October 1906 and freight and parcel handling ended on 25 May 1981. With the opening of the Sekishō Line on 1 October 1981, the station became part of that line and the platform-usable length was extended to 550 m with a new turnout line (track 3). With the privatisation of JNR on 1 April 1987 the station passed to JR Hokkaido. Following the abolition of Takinoue Station on 16 March 2024, Kawabata became the only station on the Sekishō Line served only by local trains.

The name 'Kawabata' ('river-edge') was chosen because the station was opened at the closest point to the Yūbari River. On 12 December 2001 an outbound local train entered a safety side-track and derailed here — caused by the crew leaving the station against a stop signal during emergency train-crossing arrangements — but no casualties resulted.