The fact that there are delays in rail traffic no longer surprises anyone in Germany, but it does in Japan. Delays are so rare there that sometimes it becomes top news when it does happen.
This is what happened this morning in Tokyo on the Yamanote line, one of the busiest and most important railway lines in the metropolitan region: the first scheduled trains were canceled early in the morning due to a signal problem. This was immediately the main news for Japan’s media. Around 110,000 people were affected by the disruption.
The ring line, which connects the most important commuter hubs and business areas in Tokyo, was able to resume operations around 9:00 a.m. local time. However, the timetable was “significantly affected and commuters were badly affected,” local media reported. “I was supposed to be in the office early but now I can’t make it to a meeting,” a 29-year-old man was quoted as saying.
It is not surprising that such an incident makes such headlines, since trains in Japan are 99 percent on time. Other nations can only dream of that.
Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train, the pride of the nation, is also famous for its punctuality. Except in the case of natural disasters, there are hardly any delays here either. However, if there are delays of less than a minute, this leads to repeated apologies. In 2017, a train company was forced to apologize because a Tokyo suburban train had not left too late, but too early: by 20 seconds. Nobody had complained at all.
