A man attacked an elderly woman with a knife in front of Fukushima station in northeast Japan on Monday, police and local media said, the latest in a string of recent assaults on and around the country's train network.

The attacker has been taken into custody, regional police said, with local media reporting he had been caught by bystanders.

A woman in her 80s was hospitalised after the assault, national broadcaster NHK reported. Television station TV-U Fukushima said the victim sustained an injury in her abdomen but was able to speak.

"A man with a knife attacked (another person) in front of Fukushima Station today. Patrol cars rushed to the scene. The man has been taken into custody," Fukushima Prefecture Police tweeted.

Police officials declined to comment further.

Violent crime is rare in Japan, but a series of attacks have taken place in recent months at train stations or inside trains.

A 24-year-old man was arrested in Tokyo on Halloween for attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed a passenger and started a fire inside a moving train, wearing an outfit reminiscent of infamous comic villain the Joker.

That incident reportedly inspired a 69-year-old man to try to start a fire inside a running Shinkansen bullet train in the southwestern Kyushu region earlier this month. No injuries were reported.

In August, nine people were wounded, one of them seriously, in a stabbing attack on a commuter train in Tokyo, with the suspect later handing himself in after fleeing the scene.

In a separate attack, also in August, two people suffered acid burns at a Tokyo subway station.