JR East's museum... of railway incidents.

[Socimi]

In Shirakawa, Fukushima prefecture, JR East opened a peculiar museum, dedicated to railway accidents.

 

It's main exibit is KuHa E233-1077 and SaHa E233-1277 of the Keihin-Tohoku Line set No.177, wich struck a maintainance vehicle and derailed at Kawasaki station in February of 2014.

 

Other exibiths are what remains of a Tohoku Main Line E721 series (either set P-1 or P-19) destroyed by the March 2011 tsunami and a vast array of documentation about hundreds of accidents, both big and small.

 

Unfortunately, it's not open to the pubblic. It's a JR-employees only facility designated to educate about causes of accidents and how to prevent them.

 

Seems to be a rather conventional method, compared to recent "training improvements" implemented by a certain company...

*cough* JR West *cough*

 

denshaotaku365's blog (in french)

http://www.denshaotaku365.com/archives/2018/10/16/36773337.html

 

mikeshouts

https://mikeshouts.com/jr-east-museum-of-accidents/

 

Sankei Shimbun (Japanese)

https://www.sankei.com/photo/story/news/181009/sty1810090021-n1.html

 

[cteno4]

Interesting! It’s a good approach for education on this sort of tough content. Informal exhibit spaces with the correct environment (visual space to stimulate curiosity and give some emersion) and discussion elements (hands on artifacts and detail bits to bring up to answer questions and stimulate discussion) and hardware (informal seating, good controllable lighting and pa), can really be a great hybrid of museum, classroom and lecture forum experiences that can engage better and make an environment much more conducive to discussion, thought, and retention of information. I’ve done a few projects down this line and stuff done is always been really popular with public audiences feeling like things were more personalized and not just being talked at even when in an auditorium. We designed a big one for a multicultural center for 3-12 grade students and educators were super excited about the prospect of teaching tougher issues this way in a more creative and informal atmosphere.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[ConnieCommie]

I mean, as long as nobody died in the incidents displayed (and nobody did, the 233 set was empty) i find this a strange yet sensible approach.

[miyakoji]

I think this is an honest and realistic way to study accidents.  "Here's what can happen when you %^&* up."  It should be open to the public not as a point of railroad interest but as a reminder to respect potentially dangerous things and take them seriously.

 

It was before my time, but didn't driver's education classes in US high schools have film or pictures of wrecks?  The way people drive, I think this should be reinstated.

[cteno4]

Oh yes the films were uber graphic in the 50s-70s, jellied bodies from train strikes, blood and guts, dismemberments, etc. I think my generation was the last of them.

 

it does start going down the jr west under the tracks training train, so to speak.

 

jeff

[marknewton]

Looks like I’ll be the one to offer a dissenting view. I think there’s a lot of merit in the idea of exposing non-operating staff to working trains in their natural environment. I wouldn’t mind betting that there’s a lot of JR West employees who are like people on my railway. They don’t really understand or appreciate how the railway works, because they’ve not had any meaningful experience or exposure to it.

 

I was involved in an incident a few weeks back that could have been minimised had our duty manager understood the significance of what he was witnessing and stopped my train as soon as he saw it happening. I don’t blame him, because he, like most recent hires, has never been trained or educated in the finer points of train working. The same goes for our signallers. 

 

So as long as it’s properly supervised and conducted safely, I have no problem with employees getting close to moving trains to get some insight into what they do and how they do it. When I have trainees learning the road I don’t just ride up the front and point at things out the window. I get them down on the ground and walk them through our yards and interlockings, and I make them do the things that they might have to do one day when things go pear-shaped. And so far that’s worked out pretty well.

 

(Only one of my former trainees has stuffed up badly.)

 

All the best,

 

Mark.