Kominato Railway Goi Locomotive Depot Engine Shed and Smithy

Where Kominato's Trains Have Slept Since 1925

The Kominato Railway Goi Locomotive Depot Engine Shed and Smithy (小湊鉄道五井機関区機関庫及び鍛冶小屋) is a timber engine shed and attached blacksmith's workshop built around 1925 in the yard of Kominato's Goi Station in Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on May 2, 2017. Its registration number, 12-0193, is the first of the line's twenty-two.

Goi is where the Kominato line begins, and the depot that stores and services its trains sits inside the station grounds. The engine shed has been sending out trains since the year the railway opened.

A Two-Track Shed with a Forge

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Kominato Railway Goi Locomotive Depot Engine Shed and Smithy is a single-storey timber building with a sheet-metal roof and a building area of 266 square meters. The engine shed runs 20 meters deep, and the smithy is joined to it so that the two form an L in plan.

Two tracks run into the shed, with a work area along its east side. The agency singles out how much survives, machinery included, and calls it a valuable example of a Taishō-era depot on a regional railway.

The smithy is where parts were heated and hammered back into shape. Keeping the forge next to the shed speaks to a small company that maintained its own rolling stock from the steam era onward.

Seeing It

The depot is a working railway facility, and the yard is closed to the public. You see the Kominato Railway Goi Locomotive Depot Engine Shed and Smithy from outside the yard, for example from the platforms at Goi Station: look for the timber gable end with two tracks leading into it.

As of September 25, 2026, trains between Goi and Kazusa Ushiku were running normally. Kominato's Goi Station shares a site with JR Goi Station on the Uchibo Line, so the depot is only a short walk from the JR platforms.