is a junction passenger

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

located in the city of Tsu,

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

, operated by

Central Japan Railway Company is the main railway company operating in the Chūbu (Nagoya) region of central Japan. It is officially abbreviated in English as JR Central and occasionally as JR Tokai (). The term ''Tōkai'' refers to the southern portion of Central Japan, ...

(JR Central), the private railway operator Kintetsu and the third sector

Ise Railway The is a Japanese railway line in Mie Prefecture which runs between Kawarada Station, Yokkaichi, and Tsu Station. It is the only railway line of the third-sector operator , commonly abbreviated to . The company took over the former Japanese N ...

. The name of the station is considered the shortest in Japan because it is the only station name that is written with one ''

kana are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , wh ...

'', even though other stations have shorter names when written in Latin letters, such as Oe Station.

Lines

Tsu Station is served by the JR

Kisei Main Line The is a railway line that parallels the coastline of the Kii Peninsula in Japan between Mie Prefecture and Wakayama Prefecture. The name takes the ''kanji'' characters from the names of the old provinces of and . The line is operated by Cen ...

, and is located 15.5 km (9.6 mi) from the starting point of the line at Kameyama Station. It is from the terminus of the Nagoya Line at

Ise-Nakagawa Station is a major junction station owned and operated by the private Kintetsu Railway, Kintetsu railway company in the city of Matsusaka, Mie, Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture. The station is served by all trains on that company's Yamada Line and most trains ...

. It is also the terminus of the Ise Line and is from the opposing terminus at

Yokkaichi Station is a railway station located in the city of Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, Japan, operated by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tōkai). It also has a freight terminal of the Japan Freight Railway Company (JR Freight). Downtown Yokkaichi is located ...

Station layout

The station consists of four ground-level

platform Platform may refer to: Arts * Platform, an arts centre at The Bridge, Easterhouse, Glasgow * ''Platform'' (1993 film), a 1993 Bollywood action film * ''Platform'' (2000 film), a 2000 film by Jia Zhangke * '' The Platform'' (2019 film) * Pla ...

s serving six tracks, connected by pedestrian footbridges. The JR uses one

island platform An island platform (also center platform (American English) or centre platform (British English)) is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway inte ...

and one

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms, ...

and the Kintetsu portion has one island platform. The Ise Railway uses a single

bay platform In the United Kingdom and in Australia, a bay platform is a dead-end railway platform at a railway station that has through lines. It is normal for bay platforms to be shorter than their associated through platforms. They must have a buffer stop ...

Platforms

Adjacent stations

History

Tsu Station opened on November 4, 1891, as a station on the Tsu

spur line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

of the privately owned Kansai Railway. The line was nationalized on October 1, 1907, becoming the

Sangū Line The is a railway line run by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central), connecting Taki Station ( Taki, Mie) with Toba Station (Toba, Mie) in Japan. The line connects with the Kisei Main Line at Taki Station. From Taki, the line runs paral ...

of the

Japanese Government Railways The Japanese Government Railways (JGR) was the national rail transport, railway system directly operated by the until 1949. It was a predecessor of Japanese National Railways and the later Japan Railways Group. Name The English name "Japanese ...

on October 12, 1909. On April 3, 1932, the

Sangū Express Electric Railway , usually abbreviated as Sankyū (参急), was a private railway company that operated in Nara Prefecture and Mie Prefecture, Japan for 14 years from 1927 to 1941, when it merged with its parent company, Ōsaka Electric Railroad (''Daiki''). Sanky� ...

began operations at Tsu Station. This line underwent various changes in ownership, eventually becoming the Kintetsu Nagoya Line in 1944. The station was transferred to the control of the

Japanese National Railways The , abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987. Network Railways As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pre ...

(JNR)

on July 15, 1959. The JNR Ise Line began operations on September 1, 1973. The station was absorbed into the JR Central network upon the

privatization Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

of the JNR on April 1, 1987, with the Ise Line spun off to the private sector a few days earlier.

Passenger statistics

In fiscal 2019, the JR portion of the station was used by an average of 3,609 passengers daily (boarding passengers only). During the same period, the Kintetsu portion was used by 15,689 passengers and the Ise Railway portion by 1,691 passengers daily.

Surrounding area

*Mie Prefectural Office *Tsukairaku Park *Mie Gokoku Shrine * Mie Prefectural Art Museum

References

External links

*
Tsu Station Official home page - JR Central

*
Official home page - Ise Railway
{{Ise Railway Ise Line Railway stations in Japan opened in 1891 Railway stations in Mie Prefecture Tsu, Mie Kisei Main Line