JR East consults priest over mystery illness plaguing drivers

[Tony Galiani]

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15580594

 

A new one on me.  Hope they sort out a solution!

 

Tony

[bill937ca]

Do they work 14 hour shifts or similar?  That might be the reason.

[cteno4]

The article said other crews used same equipment and similar shift durations/schedules and had a much lower sick rate. Only difference was the office they did time at before and after a shift so why the focus on the office, but nothing has been found with testing.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Another post on the topic - dated January 25, 2025:  

https://tokyomegaloops.blogspot.com/

referring to it as the "Nakano Depot Disease" which seems a bit dramatic.

Tony

[cteno4]

This one mentions passengers effected the other one I don’t think mentioned passengers. This one doesn’t get into the big differences in illness in the two offices that supply drivers to the same lines.

 

jeff

[miyakoji]

I went looking around on the Japanese interwebs under the colloquial term nakadenbyo 中電病. There are some articles from major news outlets, as well as a video from yesterday on Asahi Shinbun’s YouTube channel.  No English subtitles available but from what I can gather the depot (officially Nakano Tokatsu Center since November 1, 2024; tokatsu meaning unification or merging or something) has 220 drivers and in the last 3 years has had 43 incidents of this illness, as stated in Tony’s first link.  19 of those were in 2024, between April and November.  Tsudanuma Depot, if I understand correctly, has about half the number of drivers, and in 2024 had only 2 such illnesses.  There are a few enlightened comments on the video 😬

 

I actually worked in an office that had dodgy water, and took a liter of my own filtered water everyday.  I thought this was clever until I remembered the episode of the Office where Dwight claims to do the same.