留萌停車場全景

About this photo

This photo gives a wide view of Rumoi Station in Rumoi, Hokkaido. It appears in Hokkaido Rumoi-sen Zentsu Kinen (Commemorating the Completion of the Rumoi Line, Hokkaido), published in 1910 (Meiji 43) by the Hokkaido Construction Office of the Railway Agency. The book marked the opening of the railway between Fukagawa and Rumoi, so the photo is thought to show the station just after it opened.

Rumoi Station opened on November 23, 1910, when the Rumoi Line to Fukagawa was completed. At the time, the station's name was written with a different character. The railway was built to carry coal, timber and seafood to the port of Rumoi on the Sea of Japan. Work to improve the harbor began that same year, and later many tracks for coal wagons came to fill the station yard.

Over time fewer people used the railway, and in 2023 (Reiwa 5) the section between Ishikari-Numata and Rumoi was closed, and Rumoi Station with it. The site of the freight tracks is now a park and the Michi-no-Eki Rumoi roadside station.

Glossary