Railway Day(2)

The Japan Meteorological Agency announced that Kogarashi-ichigou(木枯らし1号, the first cold wintry wind of the year) blew in Kanto Region on October 26th.

I send my deep sympathy and prayers to the quake victims and their families in Turkey, and I hope the floodwaters in Thailand recede as soon as possible and that there would be no more damage.


What happened to the the passangers on board trains in Tohoku when the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11th?
None of the passangers was killed by the quake and tsunami while aboard a train.

1. Shinkansen(bullet train)
Piers supporting elevated tracks were damaged by the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 and the Miyagi earthquake in 2003. The roof and sidewall of the Uonuma Tunnel collapsed due to the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake in 2004.  Therefore, JR East(one of Japan Railways Group) had undertaken antiseismic reinforcement of the piers and tunnels on the shinkansen(bullet train) lines in hazard areas.

Twenty seven Tohoku Shinkansen trains were running when the quake occurred. One of them was running at 270 kilometers per hour. All of them stopped safely due to the Urgent Earthquake Detection and Alarm System (UrEDAS). The system automatically braked the trains 9 seconds before the quake's first shaking arrived. So the decelerating trains didn't derail, but a deadhead train during test run derailed.

Then, it is estimated that between 40 and 50 trains were running on the conventional lines serving Tohoku Region. JR rail routes including Hachinohe, Yamada, Ofunato, Kesennuma, Ishinomaki, Senseki and Joban lost 23 stations because of tsunami.

2.JR Joban Line

The quake occurred after a four-car Joban Line train arrived at Shinchi Station in Fukushima Prefecture. There were about 40 passengers including two policemen in suit on the train. The two policemen were on their way from a police school to Soma Police Station, their posting.

Watching TV on a passenger's cell-phone with One-Seg functions, the passengers learned that Large Tsunami Warning was issued. The station is located 600m from the coast, so one of the policemen judged on the instant that tsunami would rush toward the station. He suggested heading for higher ground 1 kilometer from the station, but an elderly woman insisted on waiting for her family members to arrive at the station. He talked her into evacuating.

The passangers walked to higher ground with him in the lead. The elderly woman couldn't walk fast because of having weak legs, so the other policeman went with her. Ten minutes later,  the policeman and the woman were left far behind. He turned around and saw that tsunami was 200m away from them. Shinchi Station and their train had already been engulfed by tsunami. He stopped the passing pickup truck and they hitched a ride on the truck. Thirty minutes later, they reached the higher ground. The safety of all the passangers was confirmed.

For a moment, it crossed their minds that a tsunami might not hit this area. However, they put the school's teachings into practice. They did what police officer should do.
After that, the two officers were assigned to search for missing persons.

3.JR Senseki Line

The quake occurred shortly after a four-car Senseki Line train left Nobiru Station in Miyagi Prefecture. After leading its passangers to an evacuation spot(elementary school), its conductor walked to Sendai, about 30 kilometers away from the station. All communication to the disaster area had been cut off, so he could only walk to report on the present situation. The next day, he reached Sendai. The train was found in a residential area.

4.JR Kesennuma Line

The quake occurred shortly after a Kesennuma Line train left Matsuiwa Station in Miyagi Prefecture. The line is right by the sea. The train stopped on the 5-meter-high elevated bridge. Three female high-school students on board the train saw that seawater was drawing back, the seabed which are normally submerged was being exposed and fishes jumped up and down.  JR's direction center gave the train's driver directions, and the driver urge the train's passangers to get out of the train and head for higher ground. The passangers disembarked from the train by turns.

The students were heading in the direction of the house of one of them, but the driver chased after them and said, "Don't go that way! Head for higher ground at the next railroad crossing." They ran desperately and got separated. Two of them saw tsunami going across in front of them on national route 45. They ran for their lives to higher ground. They reached a junior high school on higher ground and joined together.

One of them said, "I owe him my life." She was truly grateful for the train's driver. The train's passangers were all evacuated from the train, but their safety after evacuation was not confirmed.

5.The Sanriku Railway South Rias Line

The Sanriku Railway (三陸鉄道) has the North Rias Line and the South Rias Line extends along the Sanriku Coast.
When the quake occurred, a South Rias Line train was running in the 3906-meter-long tunnel. The train stopped urgently in the tunnel. The train's driver and two passangers stayed there for two hours. The driver moved toward the tunnel exit to check on the damage. What he saw at the end of the tunnel was the collapsed elevated railroad tracks.

One of passangers was hearing impaired, so the driver wrote messages to communicate with the passanger. The driver led the passangers to walk 1.4 kilometers through the tunnel toward its entrance.
The trains on the line usually stopped at a scenic location for visitors for one minute and the train also stopped on the day. The driver said, "What if the train didn't stop for one minute?"

The Sanriku Railway resumed passenger service on the fifth day after the quake and anyone could ride its trains for free. Now the railway offers discounted fares. Many railfans throughout Japan has been supporting the railway.

One train is stranded at Fudai Staion on the North Rias Line. The station is on the damaged section. Local residents wrote messages on daruma dolls and put them on the train's seat so that the train didn't feel lonely. Local people have a deep emotional attachment to the Sanriku Railway.

"Karubonado" Shimanokoshi Station(島越駅) and the elevated railroad tracks of North Rias Line

They disappeared on March 11th.



6.JR Yamada Line

a Yamada Line train

 The quake occurred shortly before a two-car Yamada Line train arrived at(or left) Tsugaruishi Staion. There were about 20 passengers and crew members on board. JR's direction center informed the train's driver that large tsunami warnings were issued, and the center ordered the suspension of the train's departure and evacuation of its passangers.


The crew members led the passangers to an evacuation spot(elementary school), but the tsunami rushed toward its schoolyard. The passangers followed the directions of a member of a local fire company to escape to the hill behind the school.
The train was swept up and derailed by the tsunami.

7.JR Ofunato Line

The quake occurred shortly after a two-car Ofunato Line train left Ofunato Station. The crew evacuated the passangers on report of issuance of large tsunami warnings. The train happened to stop on slightly higher ground, so it remained. The tracks in front and back of the train were engulfed by the tsunami. A part of the roadbed was undermined. Unfortunately, the train was dismantled in July.

8. freight train on Joban Line

A freight train on Joban Line was carrying 20 containers. Its driver stopped the train after receiving the train protection radio warning. Soon after that, the big shake occurred. He struggled to reach JR's train control center on his cell-phone but had trouble contacting the center. Then, tsunami rushed toward the train. The engine car shaked. The containers and flatcars were 30 km away from the engine car. He waited there for a while, but he decided to escape from the train. Because big shakes repeatedly occurred and he heard an announcement that over ten-meter high waves would hit his area over Municipal Disaster Management Radio Communication Network.

He walked to a private house while dipping his body in the cold water up to his neck and went upstairs. He got a call on his cell-phone from the center and let the center know his safe. He spent a night in the house, and he moved to a secure location because the water began to recede.

The government expects to cover half of the restoration costs of the third-sector railway companies in tsunami-hit areas including the Sanriku Railway and to cover the other half by offering subsidies to local governments which have a stake in the companies.

JR East don't decide to restore its rail routes in tsunami-hit areas. Plans to move communities to higher ground are under consideration, so local governments hope to move JR rail routes near residential areas.
JR East and the local governments decided to move parts of rail routes including Joban, Senseki and Ishinomaki to higher ground.

9. planes

About 80 domestic flights and 8 international flights were scheduled to arrive and depart at Sendai Airport on March 11th this year. Fortunately, no passenger plane stayed at the airport at 2:46 p.m. when the quake occurred.

Air China Flight 924 for Dalian deaprted at 2:40 p.m. from Sendai with 61 passengers.

Japan Airlines Flight 2209 from Osaka(Itami Airport) was scheduled to arrive at 2:45 p.m., but it was delayed due to bad weather. The quake occurred soon after the flight departed 1 hour later than one expected. The flight turned back to Osaka.

An IBEX Airlines plane conducted landing training, but it was up in the air at 2:46.

After Large Tsunami Warning(6m) was issued at 2:49 p.m., airport staffs were led to go up to the third floor of the office building and passengers were led to go upstairs in the airport terminal building.

After Large Tsunami Warning(10m) was issued at 2:49 p.m., airport staffs were led to go up to the flat roof of the airport office and passengers were led to go up to the third floor of the airport terminal building.

The airport terminal building was a designated safe shelter, so many local residents fled to the airport.
After Large Tsunami Warning was issued, the staffs of a special nursing home shuttled 96 elderly people back and forth to the airport. Elderly people and staffs were all evacuated at 3:53 p.m.

Large tsunami reached the airport at 3:59 p.m.

About 1,600 people including passengers, local residents, airport staffs and the staffs of related facilities were kept in isolation.
The airport came in from the cold at around 4:00 p.m. on 12th.

At a Civil Aviation College's Sendai branch adjacent to Sendai Airport,  a trainer aircraft was about to land at the branch's airport when the quake occurred. The controller told the pilot to overshoot the runway, so he pulled up the nose of the aircraft. This and other trainer aircrafts were stacked. All of them in the stack were cleared into Niigata and Fukushima airports.

At the Japanese Coast Guard air station adjacent to Sendai Airport, repeated shakes prevented the aircrafts in the air station from taking off. So four aircrafts were swept up by the tsunami.

Although there was no human damage, more than 40 aircrafts belonging to air facilities around Sendai Airport were swept up by the tsunami.

Railway Day (1)

October 14th is Railway Day in Japan. The Ministry of Railways (present JR) established the day as the anniversary of Japan's railway in 1922 to commemorate the opening day of the Japan's first railway in 1872. Now railroad companies in Japan celebrate the day.

Recently railfans are also known as Tecchan(鉄ちゃん). Tetsu(鉄) means railroad (鉄道, tetsudo). Female railfans are called Tetsuko(鉄子) and kiddy fans are done Kotetsu(子鉄). Tori-tetsu(撮り鉄) means the railfans who are keen to take photos of trains. Nori-tetsu(乗り鉄) are fond of ride various trains across the country. there are also many model train buffs. Railroad dioramas are popular.
The Railway Museum（鉄道博物館) in Saitama Prefecture is also knowm as Teppaku and is crowded with various railfans.

Some railfans go around deserted railroads and rarely-visited train stations. Tsubojiri Station on the Dosan Line in Tokushima Prefecture, one of those stations, has only one regular user. It takes 30 minutes to go from the station to his house. He has to climb up and down a narrow road. He often decorates the station with flowers. Tsubojiri is a switchback station, so the station is surviving. There used to be many regular users of this station. Some travel agencies arranged a tour to visit the station.


Choshi Electric Railway(銚子電気鉄道) is a 6.4 km long local railroad between Choshi and Tokawa in Chiba Prefecture.  The railroad company started to sell nure-senbei(ぬれ煎餅, moist rice crackers) to eliminate the deficit in 1995.  In 2006, the company could not even cover the cost of inspection and maintenance stipulated in the statute because of a chronic deficit and the embezzlement of company funds by the former company president.

At the end of its rope, the company made an intensive appeal for aid to cover the expenses of three train carriages on its Web site on November 15th in the year.
"Please buy our nure-senbei to maintain the train service!!
We have to make money to repair train carriages."

The company's appeal received a great response. The company was flooded with orders from all over Japan, and nure-senbei were sold out. The mass media reported about the appeal, and nure-senbei became known to the whole country. The company overcame business crises.
This year its nure-senbei factory was visited by the Great East Japan Earthquake, but no damage was done to its railroad.


It is a relatively well-known fact that Hiroshima Dentetsu resumed streetcar service three days after the atomic bombing. But, did you know that bombed streetcars are still running on the streets in Hiroshima?


Two bombed streetcars, 651 and 652 of the Hiroshima Dentetsu 650 series, are running on the streets during the morning and evening rush hours.
The five streetcars of the 650 series were first put into service in 1942. The streetcar 651 was exposed to the atomic bomb at around 700 meters from the epicenter. It was derailed and burned. The streetcar 652 received relatively little damage, so it was running on the streets in August in 1945. The other three cars of the 650 series were wrecked or burned down. All the streetcars of the 650 series were restored.  The cars 653 and 654 were running until June in 2006, and they are preserved. The car 655 was wrecked in a crash and scrapped in 1967.

Due to the atomic bombing, 22 cars of 123 active streercars owned by Hiroshima Dentetsu were burned down, three were partially destroyed, 23 were completely wrecked, 34 were moderately damaged, 36 were slightly damaged and 15 were completely undamaged. Twenty seven cars were scrapped. Most of the streercars were restored.

The explanation provided on the car 651 is that only one passanger survived by jumping from the 651 when it was exposed to the atomic bomb. A man who was was exposed to the atomic bomb during the ride tells about his A-bomb experience on the car 651 around August 7th every year. He says that he was at around 750 meters from the epicenter and made it out of the streetcar alive with his mother(she died later). He spoke about his experience on 651 again this year. I'm never quite sure if he was riding on the car 651 when the bomb was dropped. His experience is different from the explanation provided on 651.  I can't find another streetcar that was at around 700 meters from the epicenter.


What is the reason why the trains in Japan always arrive on time？

Yuko Mito(三戸祐子) answers this question in "Teikokuhasha(Arriving On Time) " published by Kotsu-Shinbunsha in 2001, Shinchosha in 2005.
Her Web site(English version) is here.

Japanese trains are almost always on time. If my train arrives five minutes late during morning rush hour periods, I will get irritated. She says the origin of Japan's punctual train system dates back to Sankin koutai(参勤交代) in the Edo Period. Sankin koutai is the system of alternate attendance by a feudal lord in Edo. Project managers in feudal domains had to regularly make arrangements for Sankin koutai.

In "Kotsu Konjaku Monogatari(交通今昔物語, Japanese Railroad Tales of Times Now Past)" written by Keijiro Shimizu(清水啓次郎) in 1933, a train driver who worked on board the Imperial train from 1924 to 1933 said that the Imperial train stopped exactly at the required position at a station and arrived on time (within 2 or 3 seconds).


A rapid train of JR West's Fukuchiyama Line crashed into an apartment on April 25th in 2005 because the train approached curve at top speed to make up for being about two minutes behind schedule.

Sanriku Railway and Kenji Miyazawa

At Kongou-ji Temple, one of the shelters in Iwate Prefecture, disaster victims enjoyed the cherry blossoms on 18th. Even in the afflicted areas, the cherry trees surrounded by the wreckageare are almost in full bloom. Many afflicted people lack the emotional capacity to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

The Sanriku Railway (三陸鉄道, Sanriku Tetsudo(Japanese version only)) which has the North Rias Line and the South Rias Line extends along the Sanriku Coast. Although the Sanriku Railway train has partially resumed, there are no prospects for reopening of the entire lines.
The Iwate Galaxy Railway(いわて銀河鉄道) is different from the Sanriku Railway. Iwate Galaxy Railway Line runs from Morioka Station to Metoki Station.

Tanohata Station(田野畑駅) and Shimanokoshi Station(島越駅) on North Rias Line belong to Tanohata Village. Shimanokoshi Station was like a Mediterranean house, but it disappeared due to tsunami on March 11th.

Tanohata and Shimanokoshi Stations get the nicknames of "Campanella Tanohata" and "Carbonado Shimanokoshi". Their nicknames were named after a character and an island volcano from the works of Kenji Miyazawa(宮沢 賢治, 1896-1933) who was a poet and a children's literature author from Iwate Prefecture.

Campanella appears in "Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru(銀河鉄道の夜, Night on the Galactic Railroad or Night on the Milky Way Train)" that has already been published and translated in many countries.
Although it is very difficult to visualize his works, this story was made into an animated movie in 1985. It is an excellent work, but featuring animal characters is somewhat misleading.
Now, we can see this story named The Celestial Railroad at planetariums in Japan.
Here's the English version of its movie trailer.

The main character Giovanni has after-school and before-school jobs because his father, a fisherman, is not coming back from the sea. His mother is ill in bed. His classmates tease him about his father. Campanella is a close friend of Giovanni.

He is in solitude on the hill. The next moment, he finds himself inside the Milky Way Train with Campanella. The train travels from Northern Cross to Southern Cross. During their travels, they see fantastic sights and meet various people.

A young man with a boy and a girl gets on their train.  He tells the boy and girl, "We're going to heaven. We'll never experience a feeling of fear. We are called to heaven."

He tells the two,"We'll no longer experience saddness. We can make such a fascinating journey, and we're going to be with God. There, all the people are so nice. People who could take to the boats instead of us should be able to return home where their parents are waiting for them anxiously. We are almost there. Cheer up! "

He tells that he is their tutor and they were aboard a cruise ship that sank after it hit an iceberg.
"Not all passengers were able to take to the boats.  I made a frantic effort to put them in a boat, but I saw many younger children and their parents standing in front of the boat.  I should have thrust them out of my way even if I committed a sin against God. But, for the soul of me I couldn't do that.
Parents put their children to the boat with only children. A mother blew a kiss to her child. A father stood carrying his cross. The ship was sinking. I steeled myself. I braced for sinking with the two children in my arms. I heard people singing a hymn. Then we fell into the sea and I became unconscious. The next thing I knew I found myself inside this train. I'm sure the boats were saved."

A lighthouse keeper comforts him by saying that a road to happiness includes the steep hill.

The train arrives at the Southern Cross and All the passengers except Giovanni and Campanella get off the train.

Giovanni says to Campanella, "Campanella, we are alone again.  Let's go together forever. I'm willing to be burned like a scorpion for everyone's happiness."
Campanella answered with tears in his eyes, "Me, too."
Giovanni says, "But what is true happiness for everyone?"
Campanella answered in a vacant voice, "I don't know."
Giovanni says, "I'm not afraid of darkness anymore. I'll go in quest of true happiness for everyone. Let's go together forever."
"We sure will. Oh, that field is so beautiful! People are gathering on the field. That place must be the heaven. That person over there is my mother."
Giovanni looks back at Campanella, saying "Campanella, let's go together." However, he is not there.

The next moment, Giovanni finds himself lying on the hill. Giovanni learns in the town that Campanella went missing after saving a classmate from drowning in the river. Giovanni meets Campanella's father at the riverside. He tells Giovanni that he got a letter telling the return of Giovanni's father. Giovanni returns to his mother.

Carbonado appears in "Gusuko Budori no Denki (グスコーブドリの伝記, A Biography of Gusuko Budori)". 
Gusuko Budori is a woodcutter's son born in Ihatov Wood. Famine due to cold summer damage causes the breakup of his family. He is forced to drift from job to job due to drought or a volcanic eruption.

He comes to work in the bureau of volcano as an engineer. He succeeds in minimizing damage from volcanic eruptions and fertilizing the fields of Ihatov with manure by using artificial rain. He is reunited with his sister. She has a son. He hears of his father's fate and raises a tomb for his father.

Ihatov is hit by the cold weather again. He studies methods of protecting people from cold-weather damage. He intends to emit carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming by triggering artificial volcanic eruption. But to do that, someone can't come back from Carbonado volcano alive. He does it by himself and stops cold-weather damage.

The Tohoku Region had been wracked by famine due to cold summer damage a number of times in the past. Kenji witnessed farmers suffering from famine. He graduated from an agricultural college in Morioka(now Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University).

"Ihatov" means Iwate.
The tidal power plant that appears in this story became a reality. The first large-scale tidal power plant (the Rance Tidal Power Station) started operation in 1966.

The members of volunteer fire companies close the dikes, persuade people to evacuate over the community wireless system and help with the evacuations. So many of them were engulfed by tsunami. I heard seven of 14 deaths in Tanohata Village were the members of a volunteer fire company. (About 20 people are still missing there.)

A newspaper columnist said that Gusuko Budori came to his mind when he thought of the workers in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. He also said the workers didn't have to be Gusuko Budori.