A stray cat becomes stationmaster and saves a Japanese rail line

Kishi Station on the rural Kishigawa Line was nearly closed in 2004, and by 2006 the new railway had destaffed every station on the line to cut costs. Local volunteer Toshiko Koyama begged president Mitsunobu Kojima to let the station's stray cats keep living there - and he agreed, seeing the calico Tama as a maneki-neko, a beckoning cat of good luck.

Make the stray cat the stationmaster: a maneki-neko that greets passengers, becomes the reason to ride, and turns a loss-making branch line into a destination.

On January 5, 2007 Tama was formally appointed stationmaster; her salary was a year's cat food and a gold name tag, her duty to greet passengers. The career kept climbing: 'super station master' in 2008, Operating Officer in 2010 - the first cat executive of a railroad - and Managing Executive Officer in 2011, third in line at the company.

Ridership rose 17 percent in her first month and 10 percent year on year by March; a study credited Tama with 1.1 billion yen for the local economy; the station was rebuilt with a cat's face, and 'nekonomics' entered the language.

In 2004 the rural Kishigawa Line in Wakayama Prefecture was in such financial trouble that Kishi Station was slated for closure, saved only by residents' protests. In April 2006 the newly formed Wakayama Electric Railway destaffed every station on the line, and evicted the stray cats living around Kishi to make way for new roads. When local volunteer Toshiko Koyama pleaded to let the cats back in, president Mitsunobu Kojima agreed - recognizing in one calico named Tama a maneki-neko, the beckoning cat of Japanese shopkeeping.

The appointment on January 5, 2007 turned that superstition into a business model. Tama's contract was a year's supply of cat food and a gold name tag; her duty was sitting in the ticket office greeting passengers. She did it so well that the company kept promoting her - 'super station master' in 2008 (the only female in a managerial position at the railway), Operating Officer in 2010, Managing Executive Officer in 2011 - and rebuilt Kishi Station itself as a giant cat's face, designed by industrial designer Eiji Mitooka.

The numbers did the real arguing. Ridership rose 17 percent in Tama's first month over the year before; by March 2007 it was up 10 percent on the fiscal year; a study later credited the cat with 1.1 billion yen for the local economy. Japan even coined 'nekonomics' - cat economics - for the effect. A cat drawn to the station by luck and kindness had become the line's entire customer proposition.

The mascot was authentic: Tama already lived at the station, so the story was true the day the press walked in - no campaign needed to invent anything.

The cost was trivial and the fit was perfect - a stationmaster who greets without salary is exactly what a destaffed rural station had lost.

The railway kept investing in the bit: promotions, a custom hat, a cat-faced station building and themed trains gave tourists new reasons to keep coming.

It gave a dying rural line something no subsidy could buy: a reason for people far away to care whether the trains kept running.

A mascot only works when it is genuinely already there: Tama was not invented by a campaign, she was the station's cat - the marketing was simply telling the truth.

Tama worked the station until her death on June 22, 2015, at 16. Thousands came to a Shinto-style funeral at the station; she was given the posthumous title 'Honorary Eternal Stationmaster' and enshrined as the spirit goddess Tama Daimyojin at a cat shrine built beside Kishi Station. Her trained apprentice Nitama took over - Google marked what would have been Tama's 18th birthday with a Doodle - and the railway still runs cat stationmasters and cat-themed trains today, with a third-generation successor appointed in 2026. The line Tama saved is still running.