Draft:Temporary Station

Temporary Station is a form of a station, mainly used by the Japanese National Railways.

Description
Temporary stations are built in places that are not fit for a proper station, but are placed for the convenience of the local community. While the standard railway stations are built upon approval by the JNR, these temporary stations were able to be built by the local railway authorities.

Because of the nature of these temporary stations, most of them were located in Hokkaido. For those outside of the island, most of them were either elevated to a standard station, or were abolished upon the privatization of JNR.

Temporary stations in Hokkaido
In Hokkaido, due to the relatively low number of population density in the area, the number of settlements where building a standard station was feasible were limited. Because of the severe snowfall in the island, some residents had trouble getting to the stations, especially on those places where roads are closed for the winter season. As a result, temporary stations were placed.

Layouts
Most temporary stations were simple, with a wooden railway platform that can only fit a single-car train, a small waiting room. Some of them didn't have a waiting room, and some of them had a platform that was too small, even for a single train car. Some temporary stations became a standard station with its equipment upgraded, or kept as what it was. For example, Furuse Station was elevated from a Signal station to a temporary station for the convenience of the family who lived there, and was later elevated to a standard railway station.

Treatment
Temporary stations were usually not mentioned in the adjacent standard station's Running in board or the timetable sold across Japan (Some didn't appear in the timetable sold in Hokkaido). As a result, temporary stations were hard to recognize for non-standard users.

The fares for the temporary stations were calculated as the same as getting off the train at the next standard station, or getting on at the previous standard station, due to the lack of operating kilometers as these station are not approved by the central JNR.