The @Yomiyama Train Station (読山駅) was a modest wooden platform built in 1922 at the eastern edge of the village, where the old rail line dead-ends against the mountain. It was once a quiet stop for local commuters, mine workers commuting to Takayama, and occasional tourists heading to the Hida onsen resorts. The station had a small ticket office, waiting hall with benches, and a single platform serving the single-track line. By the late 1970s, passenger service had dwindled as the mine closed and roads improved; the last regular train ran in 1979 after tracks washed out in a storm. However, the line was kept minimally operational for occasional freight runs (supplies, coal) until late 1986, much like remote rural stations in Hokkaido that stayed open for minimal users. Sato Hiroshi was the last conductor, running the defunct line's final sporadic trips before it shut completely.
Since the blizzard struck on December 22, 1987, and the loop began, the station has become the hidden broadcast base for “Kurohaha AM666 – The Voice Under the Snow.” Passenger 13 (Sato Hiroshi) operates from a locked back room, his signal humming through the old antenna mast. The station remains out of official service—no trains arrive, no staff are present—but the platform lights flicker in slow sequence every night, and the wind through the empty tracks sounds like a distant train that never comes.
The station is a single-storey wooden building with a low platform extending along the dead-end track. The main structure includes a ticket office (shuttered), waiting hall with splintered benches, and a small back room used for storage and now pirate broadcasting. The antenna mast leans slightly, its red aircraft light blinking in perfect 11:55 rhythm. The platform is empty, tracks glazed with ice that never melts. A coal-cellar door in the alley leads to a hidden staircase descending to the Yamaoroshi-gumi’s underground den “Kuroi-Yume.”
From the road it looks like a paused scene: weathered timber walls painted faded green, roof sagging under snow, a rusted “Yomiyama Station” sign swinging on one chain. The platform is empty, tracks overgrown with black moss and ice. Windows cracked but not boarded, one pane glowing faint blue from inside (the broadcast room). The antenna mast leans slightly, red light blinking at 11:55 rhythm. Snow piles in perfect drifts that melt in human-shaped hollows by morning. At night the whole structure hums faintly, shadows on the platform moving like passengers waiting for a train that stopped coming weeks ago. The coal-cellar door in the alley bears a faded chalk bear-trap symbol, the only sign of the underworld below.
1922: Station opens as part of the Hida branch line extension.
1930s–1970s: Peak use for mine workers and freight; passenger service declines after mine closure in 1979.
Late 1986: Final freight run; @Sato Hiroshi (佐藤 博) witnesses the murder of his colleague Yamada Kenji on the last trip. Two hooded figures fled the train at 8 p.m. near the village edge, leaving Yamada frozen rigid in the cabin—stab wound oozing black ichor from chest and eyes. Yamada, a four-year resident who relocated his family for roots, was Sato's only friend on shift. Sato blamed American agents covering a WWII warhead leak, tying it to hotspring murders and Krampus rumors. He commandeered the abandoned station for "Kurohaha AM666," broadcasting as "Passenger 13" (his lucky number, now ironic). Recruited 15–20 believers via anti-imperialist rants, forming Atomic Children to "watch for saboteurs." Challenges listeners to crash site proof, but none return—secretly fears the "radiation" is worsening, yet pushes on to "avenge Yamada."
December 22, 1987: Blizzard strikes; station officially out of service. Sato begins broadcasting from the back room, turning the station into the voice of resistance.
The service road is snow-choked, barely passable. No trains have come since the loop began. The main platform is empty, but the broadcast room glows faintly blue at night. Sato Hiroshi lives in the back room, surviving on stored supplies and broadcasting every night. The station is one of the few places where the signal from “Kurohaha AM666” originates—static-heavy rants about radiation and conspiracies. The coal-cellar entrance leads to the Yamaoroshi-gumi den below; the bear-trap symbol is always fresh. Footprints sometimes appear on the platform leading toward the woods and simply stop. At 11:55 p.m., a train whistle sounds from nowhere, but no train ever arrives.
The station is a silent witness to the village’s past—once a lifeline to the outside world, now a haunted shell broadcasting truths no one wants to hear. It promises connection, but the tracks lead only deeper into the mountain’s silence.