Kofuku Station
licensed photographMaedaAkihiko / CC BY-SA 4.0

East Hokkaido · TokachiNo.1139★★Open in map →

Kofuku Station

— A closed halt on the old Hiroo Line

localOff the trail — and worth it

A country halt on the Hiroo Line, left standing after the line was scrapped because of the word in its name, which reads as happiness. The wooden building, a plank platform and orange railcars sit in the fields south of Obihiro.

  1. FromObihiro Station
  2. ~1 hrTokachi Bus, Hiroo Line
  3. Get off atKofuku (Tokachi Bus Hiroo Line)
  4. On foot
  5. Kofuku Station
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

The line closed, yet people keep arriving. What draws them is not scenery or ruins but the word in the name. The site is quiet because it sits among fields with an infrequent bus, not because it is unknown.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Kofuku Station railcarsMaedaAkihiko / CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. The station kioska small shop by the entrance selling reproductions of the Aikoku to Kofuku ticket
  2. The station buildinga wooden waiting hall rebuilt in the old shape, its walls and ceiling papered with visitors' tickets
  3. The plank platformthe boarded platform kept behind the building, in the form the line used
  4. Two diesel railcarsa pair of orange cars from the line's working days, standing on a short length of track
  5. The happiness bella bell in the adjoining square, rung by most people before they leave

How to actually get there

  1. JR Obihiro Station bus terminal → Kofuku (Tokachi Bus, Hiroo-bound, roughly 40 to 50 minutes).
  2. Leave the main road at the stop and follow the signs to the station site.
  3. Work through the site in order: kiosk, station building, platform, railcars, then the bell in the square.
  4. Return to the same stop for the bus to Obihiro, or carry on to Aikoku if you are driving.
Tokachi Bus Hiroo Line from Obihiro Station
From the bus terminal at JR Obihiro Station take a Tokachi Bus service bound for Hiroo and get off at the Kofuku stop. The ride takes roughly 40 to 50 minutes. Departures are spaced out through the day, so check the operator's timetable before you go.
Return from the Kofuku stop
Buses back toward Obihiro use the same stop on the main road. Services are not frequent, so note the return times before you walk over to the station site. If you are driving instead, central Obihiro is about thirty minutes away.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Kofuku stands on the farm plain south of Obihiro, one small wooden building at the edge of open fields, with a plank platform and orange diesel railcars parked behind it. The name reads as happiness. Two stops up the old line was a station called Aikoku, the land of love. Once that pairing was pointed out on national television, a ticket reading from Aikoku to Kofuku turned into the souvenir the whole country wanted, and about ten million of them sold in four years. The trains stopped running long ago. The ticket did not.

How to enjoy it

Buy a reproduction ticket at the kiosk, write on it and add it to the wall — that is what most visitors come to do. The collection is stripped and started over every so often, so nothing on the wall is permanent. Allow a generous margin if you are travelling by bus, since services out to Kofuku are widely spaced.

Background & history

The halt opened in 1956 on the Hiroo Line and closed in 1987 when the whole line was abandoned. Its name had been assembled decades earlier by settlers, who took one character from the old district name Koshin and the other from Fukui, the prefecture many of them had left behind. National attention arrived in March 1973, when the NHK documentary series Shin Nihon Kiko filmed here. The building standing today dates from a rebuild in 2013, after the original had decayed past the point where it could be reinforced.

Before you go

Cash
The station site is an open railway park rather than a ticketed attraction. Carry cash for the bus fare and for the kiosk, which sells the reproduction tickets.
Before you go
The station building is unheated and the square around it is open to the wind. Tokachi winters are long, and the kiosk keeps shorter hours through the cold months. The interior of the railcars serves as an exhibition hall that has to be booked in advance, so on an ordinary visit they are seen from outside.
Another way
By car it is Route 236 south out of central Obihiro, or a few minutes from the Kofuku interchange on the Obihiro-Hiroo expressway. Aikoku, the other half of the pair, is also preserved and keeps its own exhibits.
After you get off
The Kofuku stop is on the main road. From there it is about five minutes on foot east to the station site, which is signposted.