International Railroad Discussion > Shinkansen uncoupling incident

On some lines north and east of Tokyo, two Shinkansen leave Tokyo as one train, and split in two directions further up the line. My older photo of this was taken at Ueno station in Tokyo. Apparently someting went wrong yesterday. From today's Japan Times:

>A coupler of a train comprising Hayabusa cars and Komachi cars on the Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train line came undone while the train was heading for Tokyo on Thursday, causing it to make an emergency stop and services on the line to be halted temporarily.

>The Hayabusa-Komachi No. 6 train, made up of 10 Hayabusa cars and seven Komachi cars, did not derail, according to JR East. Following the train decoupling incident, services were suspended on both directions for the whole of the Shinkansen line between Tokyo Station and Shin-Aomori Station in Aomori Prefecture. Operations restarted around 1:10 p.m. 

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The specific train sets involved were JR East's E7 and E6 sets. E7 (10 cars, ~200 passengers onboard) was leading to Tokyo, and E6 (7 cars, ~120 passengers onboard) was trailing. They came uncoupled at 300+ km/h (186+ mph) between Furukawa and Sendai. The location is north of Sendai.

Following link has the image of the E7 (green) and E6 (red stripes) coupled together (at Tokyo):

https://cdn.trainorders.com/attachments/fullsize/920000/Shinkansen2a.jpg

The set parked to the right is the older E2.

It's early into the investigation, but experts have weighed in, speculating of course. The uncoupling probably happened at full speed (~315 km/h), and most likely caused by some sort of electrical problem that unlocked the coupling. Operator error is unlikely. JR East is in the process of inspecting 96 train sets, although information so far hasn't disclosed specifically how, whether they are being taken out of service or not.

I "found" a live aerial footage, thanks to Big Data who saw that I was reading the story last night in Japanese. At first glance, the zoomed look at the couplers show no apparent damages, hence the experts' speculation on an electrical problem. At the time of the incident, an E2 set running the other direction also stopped at the location - rescue train? It may have been a precaution in case there was a mechanical problem (shrapnel, track or catenary damages) involved.