Abandoned Kansai

Abandoned train stations along closed lines are not that unusual anywhere in the world – an unfinished and abandoned station along an ACTIVE line on the other hand…

Finding unusual locations is pretty tough when running a weekly urbex blog for several years, especially when living in a country where the majority of abandoned places are schools and hotels. When I first heard about an abandoned train station along an active line, I knew I had to check it out sooner or later – the station is accessible by public transportation (obviously…) and a not too long walk, but I happily took advantage of the opportunity to get there by car when I was in the area with my friends Dan and Kyoko.
The Unfinished Train Station is located pretty much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and forests, about a kilometer away from the next houses – it’s instantly apparent why the station was never finished, though it was supposed to open in 1980; but since then, the most nearby settlements didn’t expand much towards the station and the area stayed as rural as it was in the 20th century.
Exploring the Unfinished Train Station took a total of 15 minutes – luckily there were no warning signs, and the barriers weren’t effective against pedestrians at all. After about 10 minutes a scheduled train passed by and I was sure the conductor saw us, so I took a quick video at the platforms before walking up to the railway tracks for some photos from the distance. And then I saw it coming… the maintenance car. Luckily it was a railway maintenance car, so it was stuck to the tracks, but it was pretty clear that this was not a coincidence, so I ran to our car, while the track vehicle slowed down and came to a halt. Looking back I saw somebody getting out and looking after us while we were speeding away, but luckily the guy didn’t make any efforts to get a hold of us; neither short-term (car description to the local police) nor long-term (via the license plate).
Unspectacular, but unique – I guess that’s the best way to describe the Unfinished Train Station. Not exactly a location you can or want to spend a long time exploring, but at the same time a location you don’t want to miss out on, just because there are not that many of them…
Oh, and if you are following *Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* you were probably expecting another location this week, but the article got longer and more complex the more time I spent on it – until it was pretty clear that I wouldn’t be able to finish on time, leaving me with the options of either cutting down on quality or moving on to yet another small location with little to say about. I decided to do the latter and hope you’ll appreciate the decision when the originally planned article goes online; hopefully next week or the week after… Thanks for your understanding!

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