Minamata

Weekday departures: 25/day · Sat & holiday departures: 25/day

First / last train (weekday): 6:30 / 21:54

Busiest hour: 21:00–22:00 (3)

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0:00 ─ 23:00

Counts are departures in the timetable data shown on our live map.

• Hisatsu Orange Railway: Shin-Minamata ⇄ Fukuro

Minamata Station opened on 21 July 1926 as a station on the Japanese Government Railways Kagoshima Main Line. The Yamano West Line branched here from 22 April 1934, but the successor Yamano Line was discontinued on 1 February 1988. Freight handling, including the spur to the Chisso plant, ended on 1 November 1986. The present station building was completed in 1955, and the Midori no Madoguchi ticket office opened in March 1972. JR Kyushu inherited the station on 1 April 1987. When the first Kyushu Shinkansen segment opened on 13 March 2004, the Yatsushiro-Sendai stretch was transferred to the third-sector Hisatsu Orange Railway, which now operates Minamata.

A spur once ran from this station into the Chisso chemical plant, source of the methyl-mercury contamination that gave the city its name in medical history; the freight line was abolished in 1986.