Nigawa Station

Nigawa Station (仁川駅) is a passenger railway station located in the city of  Takarazuka Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It is operated by the private transportation company Hankyu Railway. It is located near JRA Hanshin Racecourse and Kwansei Gakuin University. It is also an entrance station to Mount Kabutoyama, the east end of the Rokkō Mountains.

Lines
Nigawa Station is served by the Hankyu Imazu Line, and is located 4.5 kilometers from the terminus of the line at Takarazuka and 18.8 kilometers from Osaka-umeda.

Layout
The station consists of two opposed ground-level side platforms, with an addition side platform on the inbound line in the direction of Nishinomiya Kitaguchi. Each platform is connected by underground passages in two places, north and south, connecting to two ticket gates, east and west. The main entrance is the east ticket gate, which has a window, an automatic ticket vending machine, a shop, and a toilet. Since it is also the exit for the racecourse, there are many automatic ticket gates, The additional side platform has its own temporary ticket gate,

History
Nigawa Station opened on December 28, 1923. The name 'Nigawa' is originally the name of the river on the border of Takarazuka city and Nishinomiya city, and today Nigawa is used as the name of a town along the river of both cities. During the times of World War II (12/15/1943 - 9/21/1945), there was a station between Nigawa and Obayashi named Kashio (鹿塩). The station was in front of the factory of Kawanishi Aircraft Company, a predecessor of ShinMaywa Industries, Ltd. The factory was closed after GHQ ordered the company to stop manufacturing aircraft. In 1949, JRA Hanshin Racecourse was built on the vacant lot. In 2002, the station installed barrier-free facilities for the elderly and the disabled.

Passenger statistics
In fiscal 2019, the station was used by an average of 24,998 passengers daily

Surrounding area

 * Hanshin Racecourse
 * Kwansei Gakuin University
 * Kwansei Gakuin Junior High School
 * Kwansei Galuin Senior High School
 * Nigawa Gakuin
 * ShinMaywa