International Railroad Discussion > Shocking Japanese schedule failure

A Japanese rail company apologized profusely when one of its trains left twenty seconds early, at 9:44.20 rather than 9:44.40. Amtrak should take notice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/world/asia/japanese-train-apology.html?_r=0

I think this excerpt from the article sums it up:

The Japanese were bemused by the foreign fascination.

“People overseas are half amazed and praised Japan but even Japanese would laugh at this,” a user with the handle @gaishi_black wrote on Twitter.

If I were using this train to chase another train, that 20 seconds might have ruined my "2 minute transfer technique" which would have been a major bummer. I would have accepted the apology. :-)

The 2005 Amagasaki Crash is mentioned in the article as well. The engineer speeding the train to make up that 90 seconds was part of the problem. Investigation determined that toxic work environment (where this engineer was repeatedly hazed by his superiors) was determined to be the real cause. Managers were fired, CEO resigned, and apology is still posted on the front page of JR West's web site, 12 years after the accident.

No PTC mandate (or other fake political remedies to appease the public) resulted from that accident.

If a message needs to be sent to Amtrak, it should be the idea of disciplining management.

cchan006 Wrote:
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> If a message needs to be sent to Amtrak, it should
> be the idea of disciplining management.


I have had two jobs that consisted of being hired by management to (phase one) determine the cause of the safety problem and (phase two) implement the required changes. In both cases, the report at the end of phase one was: management. In neither case was there a phase two.

TAW