Wakasa Railway Tampi Station Building and Platform

A Standard Country Station With a Roof of Old Rails

Wakasa Railway Tampi Station Building and Platform (若桜鉄道丹比駅本屋及びプラットホーム, Tampi-eki) is a single-storey timber station building and stone-faced platform in Minami, Yazu Town, Tottori Prefecture, built in 1930 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 July 2008.

The station name is read Tampi, the reading the railway itself uses. The furigana in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database give Tanbi for the registered name, so you may see both spellings.

The building measures 12 metres by 4.6 metres. The western half is a waiting room with a ticket window and the eastern half an office, the standard arrangement for intermediate stations on the line. The stone-faced platform runs 80 metres, and the stretch in front of the building is sheltered by a roof framed in old rails.

Why It Was Registered

The registration cites its contribution to the historic landscape. The station came into use with the opening of the whole line in December 1930, and building and platform together keep the look of an early Shōwa intermediate station. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a textbook example of the Wakasa Line's standard station layout.

According to the railway, the station once had two sidings, one for freight and one for passing trains, a reminder of the days when timber and goods moved through here. Today only a single track and the platform remain.

What to Look For: The Carnegie Rails

Look up at the platform roof. Its posts and beams are made from old rails, and according to the railway they are Carnegie steel rails from the United States, with the maker's name still legible. Imported early-twentieth-century rail, worn out on the track, found a second life holding up a station canopy.

The building itself is timber with a gabled sheet-metal roof and clapboard walls. Turn round on the platform and the whole early Shōwa small-station formula is in front of you: waiting room with ticket window and office under one roof.

Visiting

Wakasa Railway Tampi Station Building and Platform is a working station, so the waiting room and platform are open as they would be to any passenger. The office and other staff areas are not. The track is off limits, and there is no stepping down from the platform onto it.

Take photographs without getting in the way of passengers or trains. Travel to the station and tickets are covered on the Wakasa Railway page.