In Japan, punctuality proved deadly-Across the country, the accident has already caused much soul-searching over Japan's attention - some would say obsession - with punctuality and efficiency. To many, the driver's single-minded focus on making up the 90 seconds seemed to reveal the weak points of a society where the trains do really run on time, but where people have lost sight of the bigger picture.
By Norimitsu Onishi The New York Times
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2005
AMAGASAKI, Japan Anywhere else in the world, a train running 90 seconds late would perhaps be considered on time. But in Japan, 90 seconds would perturb the rail lattice across which trains connect to one another with balletic precision, often with only a couple of minutes to spare.
And so, to make up for a lost 90 seconds, a 23-year-old train driver - it became increasingly clear on Tuesday - was speeding when his train jumped off the tracks at a curve here in western Japan and hurtled into a nine-story apartment building Monday morning.
On Tuesday, the death toll of the deadliest train accident in Japan in four decades rose to 81. Here, in this rusting industrial town just outside Osaka, rescue workers continued to try to free other passengers trapped inside the twisted and crumpled cars.
Across the country, the accident has already caused much soul-searching over Japan's attention - some would say obsession - with punctuality and efficiency. To many, the driver's single-minded focus on making up the 90 seconds seemed to reveal the weak points of a society where the trains do really run on time, but where people have lost sight of the bigger picture.
"Japanese believe that if they board a train, they'll arrive on time," said Yasuyuki Sawada, a 49-year-old railway worker, who had come to look at the crash site. "There is no flexibility in our society; people are not flexible, either."
Sawada was one of many who came to stand and watch behind the yellow police line here, and who saw hidden in this accident deeper problems.
"If you go abroad, you find that trains don't necessarily arrive on time," Sawada said. "This disaster was produced by Japanese civilization and Japanese people."
The Japanese search for rail perfection is relentless, from the humble commuter train to the country's most famous tracks. In 2004, on the 40th anniversary of the bullet-train, there was much hand-wringing over the fact that a year earlier the trains on that line had registered on average a delay of 6 seconds.
In Tokyo, the Yamanote line which loops around the city core has been making that trip in ever shorter times thanks to better trains: from 75 minutes in 1946 to 70 minutes in 1964 to 62 minutes in 1988 and, train officials project, under 60 minutes by the end of next year.
Train companies are secretive about delays. But any regular rider notices that they tend to be caused, not by engineering mishaps, but by causes beyond human control, like typhoons and suicides jumping before oncoming trains. So confident is Japan in its trains' safety that there are no restrictions on how close residential buildings can be erected next to tracks: It is not rare to see them only one meter, or three feet, apart.
Keeping to increasingly packed and tight schedules has become all-important, not only for trains, but also for airlines. Japan Airlines said this month that a recent series of mishaps were caused by its focus on keeping to schedule.
The pressure to stick to schedule is so enormous that train conductors apologize profusely over the slightest delay.
"No question about it - there is no other rail system more punctual than Japan's," said Shigeru Haga, a professor of transportation and industrial psychology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. "It's number one in the world for its punctuality and safety.
This month, West Japan Railway Co., the operator of the train involved in the crash, had for the first time issued a statement to its employees saying that delays would betray customers' confidence.
It was perhaps with this statement in mind that the 23-year-old driver, Ryujiro Takami, directed a train heading into Osaka on Monday morning. Takami, whose body has yet to be recovered, had only 11 months' experience, and had been reprimanded once for overshooting a platform by 100 meters.
On Monday morning, at Itami station outside Osaka, Takami overshot the platform again, forcing him to back up and lose 90 seconds. Apparently aware that he would be reprimanded again, he persuaded the conductor at the back of the train to report that he had overrun the platform by 8 meters. Today, officials said that the length was actually 40 meters, the equivalent of two cars.
The train, carrying about 580 passengers, began running abnormally fast after leaving Itami station, passengers reported. The train was scheduled to arrive at Amagasaki station here at 9:20 a.m., in time for many passengers to connect to another train leaving at 9:23 a.m.
The driver had made up 30 seconds, so that the train was running only 60 seconds late when it derailed at a curve here and slammed into a nine-story building standing 3.5 meters or so away.
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