KAREIGAWA STATION (HAYATOCHO, KAGOSHIMA PREF.)

Simplicity attracts ascetic admirers

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Masaaki Nakajima

By Shin Usami

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Only a few motor scooters and bicycles surround Kareigawa Station.

The oldest station in Kagoshima Prefecture is free of the clutter usually seen around stations and has not been manned for about 20 years.

"It looks like it's saying, "I'm only a station," — its lack of showiness makes me feel relaxed and alone. I like these feelings," said actor and painter Takaaki Enoki, 49, who grew up in nearby Hishikaricho and often used the JR Hisatsu Line.

Enoki held an exhibition in Hayatocho last summer, for which he made three watercolor paintings of Kareigawa Station's front, its platform, and the opposite side of the railway. His watercolors have an airy and relaxed feel. "I felt my brush move smoothly," he said. "When I was very young, these kinds of stations were everywhere."

The waiting room has an area of about 10 tatami mats. It has a dirt floor and two shiny black wooden benches. Their shared seat backs remind one of the good old days.

Local resident Taira Fukumoto, 80, joined Japanese National Railways soon after World War II and worked at the station for 10 years.

Fukumoto is an honorary stationmaster and every day voluntarily distributes self-made station information pamphlets to passengers.

"There aren't many passengers on the train, but sometimes more than 800 sightseers a day come by car to see the station. I really appreciate it," he said.

Fukumoto tells visitors the story of the rise and fall of the station with dramatic gestures and sends them off saying, "Please come again."

Last spring, the town bought the station from JR at its market price of 180,867 yen to maintain it as a cultural asset, a price as humble as the station's image.