Shinjuku, World's Busiest Train Station

[bill937ca]

A very interesting documentary on Shinjuku Station. It focuses on the station staff, starts with an automatic alarm bed, and discusses crowd control, suicides,terrorists, earthquakes, typhoons, the obsession with punctuality and how it caused the 2005 train wreck, drunks, the five rushes each day including the last train of the day. And a stand that serves a bowl of noodles every five seconds.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12ww8o_worlds-busiest-train-station-shinjuku-full_travel?start=3

Edited April 15, 2014 by bill937ca

[lurkingknight]

do they still push people into trains? I didn't see it last year, but I was only travelling at the tail end of morning rush hour.

[cteno4]

interesting doc. nice to see something on just one station like this and all the aspects around it. I just wish the narration on these were not all done with the voice of impending doom! disasters lurk at every corner! so tire of it on smithsonian, discovery, nat geo and science channels... the content is intrinsically interesting, it doesnt need the drama!

 

i though they stopped the pushing a while back. now just looking for stuff hanging out. In 84 i stayed in shinjuku for a few days and went over to the station at rush hour a few times to see the chaos. I never saw anyone getting pushed in. I did ride some really packed cars that were the equal of subway rides on us systems after events when folks really crush into cars, but never felt like a panic (that did happen on a bart ride once after a ball game where panic broke out in a jammed car and many really freaked out).

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

The pushing you see over and over is mainly the Tokyu Den-en-toshi line which runs through the Tokyo Metro Hanzomon line, one of only two  train lines right across Tokyo. The other is the JR Chou line.

Edited April 16, 2014 by bill937ca

[E6系]

I have the avi file of this if anyone wants it.

[IST]

I have the avi file of this if anyone wants it.

 

Yes, please, if you can upload it to somewhere, it would be great. And thanks in advance!

[tantousha]

Well, that made for an enjoyable distraction from work. Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[nscalestation]

Great video, thanks for posting the link.

 

Always wondered how the last staff at the station got home, now I know they don't.  I was surprised to learn that the station actually closes.  In spring of 2009 we were staying near the Shinjuku station and I noticed that at around midnight each night hundreds of cardboard mats were being laid out on the floor in the main area for the homeless to sleep on.

[Mudkip Orange]

This is in four parts on Youtube as well. Watched it last night.

 

I thought it was a *little* unfair to talk about Amagasaki without mentioning that it was a different rail company, but then if it did lead to having ATS on lines in/out of Shinjuku than I suppose it's relevant.

 

I tried to watch another one in this series, on the San Ysidro border crossing, and I couldn't finish it. It was like "oh the scaffolding collapsed and squished people and we can't get this light standard moved and the Mexican officials don't understand why there needs to be a 4hr queue when it's 30mins going the other direction but something something drugs terror something.

[E6系]

Hello Mr IST,

 

I will upload as torrent in next few days and report back.

[cteno4]

does anyone know if the staff pushing still occurs. I thought it had stopped and they were actually not letting in folks if too crowded and mainly keeping it safe for the doors to close (ie no arm or bags hanging out of doors). 

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bikkuri bahn]

does anyone know if the staff pushing still occurs. I thought it had stopped and they were actually not letting in folks if too crowded and mainly keeping it safe for the doors to close (ie no arm or bags hanging out of doors). 

 

cheers

 

jeff

You're correct.  The staff is there to make sure the doors close properly and no articles of clothing/bags get caught in the door mechanism- the doors won't close if it detects an obstruction.  As passenger loads (and other alleviating factors) have actually gone down over past few decades, the need for pushing has disappeared.

 

Scene at Shakuji Koen Station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line (go to 1:45):

 

An older scene on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line at Monzen Nakacho.  This is one of the most congested lines in Tokyo:

 

*as an aside, I don't get the western media-driven fascination with pushers (actually I may do, but that's beyond the scope of this forum)- instead of focusing on a practice that has all but disappeared, why don't they focus on the efforts of railways (successfully) to make the passenger experience more tolerable and the rush hour smoother, such as narrowing headways through introduction of systems like digital ATC, wider doors, more roomy interiors, and the efforts of the diagram schedulers (sujiya) to squeeze every minute and second to maximize passenger throughput. Of course those explanations require someone to have an attention span beyond the capabilities of the average TV viewer.

Edited April 23, 2014 by bikkuri bahn

[lurkingknight]

It's not a practice seen outside asia, people don't realize how congested it really is. Media like to focus on things that seem to be negative or different. I find they seemed to misrepresent a number of things in this documentary as well as a few others  I've seen.. at least from the limited understanding I gained with 1 trip. 

 

It's sort of a means of propaganda...in my opinion to thumb the nose of the western establishment at anything that can be turned to make it seem like we have it better over here.

 

Sure, we have things that are better here... but we also have things that are worse. It goes the other way as well.. those are called differences. It's called culture... adaptation to your own situation.. dealing with it... whatever. It's just the way it is. I guess it's one of those viewpoints you gain when you travel, and why people who have- say everyone should travel around and get to experience the way things are through their own eyes, rather than through someone else's myopic storytelling.

 

 

On more of an interesting note... I find it fascinating that there seems to be an unwritten/spoken protocol for being the last few passengers to board... turn around and step backwards into the car... one... nobody will see your face as you push them into the car... number two, people following in hopes of boarding are greeted by a wall of stoic faces.

 

 

 

*as an aside, I don't get the western media-driven fascination with pushers (actually I may do, but that's beyond the scope of this forum)- instead of focusing on a practice that has all but disappeared, why don't they focus on the efforts of railways (successfully) to make the passenger experience more tolerable and the rush hour smoother, such as narrowing headways through introduction of systems like digital ATC, wider doors, more roomy interiors, and the efforts of the diagram schedulers (sujiya) to squeeze every minute and second to maximize passenger throughput. Of course those explanations require someone to have an attention span beyond the capabilities of the average TV viewer.

[Mudkip Orange]

Here's a question, and I just wanna throw this out there, do we not need pushers in the US because we're ruder?

 

I mean, if I'm on the platform and a train rolls up and it's already packed, I'm gonna just shoulder by way in there, I will endure all manner of stink eyes from other passengers but hey this is the big city, screw you I'm getting on this train.

 

But now suppose I'm this 130lb Japanese guy, I've spent my whole life growing up in a culture that pushes respect, deference, quietness, politeness, I mean, maybe I need a railway employee to shove me in.

[lurkingknight]

you don't need them cause you gonna get shot. :P

[cteno4]

thanks bikkuri bahn, thats what i thought and have been saying to folks for a few years now, but just wanted to make doubly sure!

 

It is something that folks bring up here in the US when they see the club layout. Ive been saying that its no longer shoving as not needed and more just making sure something Unsafe is not happening. I mean we dont have folks on our subways and trains here doing that much at all! I also say that even on tightly packed trains i have been on in Japan its usually more polite and everyone trying to fit in than here in the states were its a bit of everyone for themselves mentality when it gets crowded on subways.

 

press and now docs look for the things that can be dramatized (mystery and tragedy are the usual suspects), not the straight forward telling of facts in an interesting story line of the content itself. the story line is now the message (heralding McCluan the medium is the message) not the content itself. i get into this all the time in exhibit work and when we get the oppertunity to be more direct and simpler presentation to the subjective, human side it always is a big hit when other designers scream that approach is so boring and sucks and you have to have the huge overarching story lines that use mystery or tragedy to sell the content then you just cherry pick the content to fit that dramatization. its just sooo backwards its sad.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[E6系]

Hello,

 

Here is link to "World's Busiest" series via torrent.

 

https://tvchaosuk.com/World_s_Busiest_2013-s-67398.ts

 

You will need to set up an account to download this torrent.  The website is safe and I watch many documentary and drama downloaded from there.

[Densha]

When I want to open the torrent, the website says 'Permission denied'.

[IST]

To set up an account it requires an invitation code. :-(

[E6系]

Hello,

 

So sorry.  Such an invitation was not required when I joined the site.  Anyone who want to join please PM me name and email address.  I can send the necessary invite code.

 

Please accept my apology for the confusion.

[Densha]

I can register though... I didn't read anything about a code or something.

[Davo Dentetsu]

I only have one problem with these type of docos and that is definitely the DOOM!  GLOOM!  DISASTER!  UNFRIENDLY TERRORIST BOMB FOLKS! angle most of these things take on now.  I know that for a TV show to work it has to be eyecatching, but come on, let's get back to proper fact telling and real time stories.  The 7 Up series was really good at that sort of thing.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Azumanga Davo

[cteno4]

Davo,

 

right on dude! What happened to content speaking for itself! Content is now a distant thing and is now totally bent, twisted and cut up to match the absurd story lines. This leads to not much content being given, let alone remembered, by the audience. Needs to be the other way around, figure out the content you want to present then look for a good story in the content itself, they are there. It's Michael Angelo that the sculpture is in the rock, design is bringing it out. Now days its the other way around with folks thinking its something that totally originates from with their own mind. Such hubris and conceit to think this way and leads to disconnected design with no art spirit, life or humanity.

 

Jeff

[Ochanomizu]

Hello Mr Azumanga Davo,

 

I was recently on a flight and started watching a documentary on 5 Extreme Railways.  The commentary was so bad that I did not complete the viewing.  I grew tired of the melodramatic commentary that failed to be reflected by the accompanying video.  Further, the documentary attempted to compare freight with HST with steeply graded rail.  I completely failed to grasp the concept behind the documentary.

 

So sorry to be off-topic, but you comments reminded me of this.

[cteno4]

No quite on topic Ochanomizu! Again its content being stapled on in bits to some artificial story line that a producer dreamed up who knows nothing about the content.

 

Jeff