From stray to stationmaster: Cat becomes boss at Japan’s Choshi Railway

Choshi, Japan: Japan is nothing if not a servant to tradition — even if the tradition is a little strange. In the port town of Choshi, near Tokyo, employees of a struggling railway company found a stray cat last October skulking around the station, thin, sick, and eyes frozen shut.

With plenty of space at the station, the tabby was nursed back to health by the platform staff before signing up as an ‘apprentice’ in January. Then, in July, Nakano-san achieved the rank of stationmaster, and was awarded with a neat cap and medallion for her collar.

Her CV includes such crucial skills as “pushing computer mouses off the desks” and “sleeping on paperwork.”She now figures prominently in Choshi Electric Railway Co. public relations content as a mascot, and her July debut saw the rail hub of Nakanocho Station swarmed with reporters to catch a glimpse of the new boss.

The move was strategic. Being too close to Tokyo to stand out but too far away to comfortably visit, Choshi Railway felt more needed to be done to draw interest in the city’s historic temples, lighthouses, and waterfront.

They had good reason to believe it would work. In 2007, Wakayama Electric Railway’s Kishi Station announced Japan’s first-ever cat stationmaster: Tama. After Tama passed away in 2015, she was succeeded by Nitama, who passed away last November. Now, Kishi Station is run by Yontama — literally “Fourth Tama”.

The publicity from Tama’s original appointment led to a 17% increase in passengers that month, with a study estimating her contribution to the local economy at 1.1 billion yen. She was widely credited with saving the station from closing.