Tohoku Shinkansen train uncoupled, Sep 19 2024

[paolo]

I don't see any open topic about this, so here it goes:

 

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240920_01/

 

At around 8am on Sep 19, a Komachi-Hayabusa shinkansen bound for Tokyo uncoupled before Sendai station while traveling at 315 kph.

No derailment and no one got injured fortunately, investigation is still underway. There's still no sign of what might have cause the incident.

All services between Tokyo and Shin Aomori were suspended for five hours.

 

We've seen a bit too many bad news regarding Japan railways lately, with the data tempering of JR Freight, the derailment of the maintenance trains and now this for JR Central, and now this for JR East.

[bill937ca]

Japanese news videos.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 19 by bill937ca

[katoftw]

The news outlets here in Japan went ballistic with reports about it yesterday.

 

Took them 5 hours to get trains moving again. Moved them off separately under their own power.

 

Woke up this morning. And there's more articles with the CEO getting a grilling from reporters.

[kuro68000]

What a difference in attitude. This kind of stuff barely gets a mention in the UK, not that we even have high speed trains comparable to shinkansen.

 

Reminds me of the story about that sweet maker raising the price of a product from 8 yen to 10 yen or something. Galapagos in more than one way.

[Yugamu Tsuki]

I just read this on the Easy version of NHK and instantly came here. That's a little spooky, thanks for the videos and more detailed article. 

 

@kuro68000 Was this when they raised the price on the Umaibo snacks?

[Kingmeow]

4 hours ago, kuro68000 said:

What a difference in attitude. This kind of stuff barely gets a mention in the UK, not that we even have high speed trains comparable to shinkansen.

 

No kidding!  Two days ago in NYC there were two teenage girls who took a parked subway train (how they got it started and operated is a whole other investigation) for a joy ride (didn't go too far thankfully and no passengers) and smacked it into another train.  A 10 second blip in the evening news and that was it.

Edited September 20 by Kingmeow

[kuro68000]

1 hour ago, Yugamu Tsuki said:

@kuro68000 Was this when they raised the price on the Umaibo snacks?

 

Those are the ones. According to Wikipedia they were 10 yen in 1979, raised to 12 yen in 2022. With inflation it should have been 15 yen, so they are actually still getting cheaper I guess. I just remember the shock in a normally extremely low interest economy.

 

 

On the plus side the yen is going back down (well, plus side for me anyway), but on the minus side inflation is apparently pretty high too.

[kuro68000]

39 minutes ago, Kingmeow said:

 

No kidding!  Two days ago in NYC there were two teenage girls who took a parked subway train (how they got it started and operated is a whole other investigation) for a joy ride (didn't go too far thankfully and no passengers) and smacked it into another train.  A 10 second blip in the evening news and that was it.

 

That reminds me of a question. What do Japanese trains have to prevent unauthorized operation? Door locks? A key to power them up? Nothing?

[marknewton]

12 hours ago, kuro68000 said:

That reminds me of a question. What do Japanese trains have to prevent unauthorized operation? Door locks? A key to power them up? Nothing?

Older electric stock had door locks, removable reverser handle and removable brake handle. Newer trains have door locks and a butterfly key to unlock the master controller.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Tony Galiani]

NHK article about the suspected cause of the separation:  https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20240926_30/

 

Tony