The Train Crash That Exposed Japan’s Toxic Work Culture

on a spring morning in Japan a rapid

commuter service train makes its last

ever schedule

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stop not even three minutes later 107

people aboard this train would perish

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the time is 6:11 a.m. the location is

Osaka and amagasaki

Japan many of the train lines in the

area are operated by the West Japan

Railway company or Jr West for short its

headquarters resides right here in Osaka

but our journey starts at the company's

hitan branch office where 23-year-old

riro Takami wakes up and takes the

departure roll call by 621 to begin his

birthday he makes his way to his

allocated train a 7c car 207 series

electric unit and after having completed

the startup procedure at 648 he drives

the train to Honan station to pick up

his first passengers of the day

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Takami departs the train from the

station under the number 218s on the

katamachi line to Matsui yamata station

with no problems to

report from here the train is driven as

5769 M back towards Honan to kobashi

station during this trip however Takami

accumulated 1 minute and 20 seconds of

delay the same train now as 4469 M

departs to amagasaki station 47 seconds

behind schedule on this route just

before Kashima station entering a curve

the atsp or automatic train stop system

was triggered which applied full service

breaking the train entered the curve

just under the speed limit of 65 km/

hour the train eventually made it to

amagasaki station 50 seconds late the

train was scheduled to stop for 4

minutes and was able to leave the

station on time now heading to

takarazuka station during this leg of

the Train's Journey Takami had run a red

light causing the ATS to apply emergency

breaking halting the train Takami was

supposed to report the incident to

traffic control which he didn't the

train arrives at takarazuka station 44

seconds late Takami prepares the train

to make its way back towards amagasaki

now as 541 a.m the train leaves the

station 15 seconds late while nearing

Itami station with a 34 second delay

Takami activates the breaks too late

despite the warnings in the camp he is

forced to use the emergency break after

the train passes the stopping point

having overshot the station by 72 M and

needing to back up the train is now 1

minute and 20 seconds behind schedule

the conductor masatoshi Matsushita

sitting at the other end of the train

was called by Takami on the intertrain

phone according to him Takami said

something along the lines of will you

forgive my mistake matushita wasn't able

to answer as a passenger had just

knocked on his window asking for an

apology announcement which he made

moments later he called traffic control

to report the overrun their conversation

was the following

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Meanwhile by driving on the edge of the

speed limit Takami was able to bring the

train back under the a minute behind

however right here is where the Brak

should have been applied at the latest

since just ahead is a curve with a 70 km

speed limit coming up and the train is

currently traveling at

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816 it is at this point that the train

enters the Curve and no brakes have been

applied still 4 seconds later traffic

control would attempt to call Tamaki but

by then it's too late

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rescue operations by the city Fire

Department began as early as 6 minutes

after the incident the teams began work

on on the second car first since they

had not initially realized that the

first car had been completely embedded

into the building's parking lot out of

the 92 Souls on board this car 43 had

lost their lives including the driver

the car had been destroyed to a near

unrecognizable State the second car had

been crushed against the building of the

132 on board this car 57 died out of the

over 100 people on the third car nearly

all had sustained injuries and and three

passed away the remaining cars had

experienced no casualties however a

total of 281 persons on them had been

injured an additional four souls from

cars that weren't indentified had passed

away bringing the total death count to

107 and the total number of injured to

562 how was this allowed to happen the

first key in understanding the cause of

the disaster is to look at the train

involved the 207 series is a Standard

7ar Electric unit which the company

owned hundreds of with a top operating

speed of 12 km/ hour great acceleration

breaking and a capacity of

1,115 the train was optimized for

getting as large a number of people as

possible from A to B in a timely manner

Hiroshi Kubota an expert who once worked

for the National Railway stole a

newspaper that quote the derail train

has heavy air conditioning systems on to

the roof of the cars that are just as

heavy as the bottom frames of the cars

that probably ambalance the cars and

made them prone to

topple this specific unit comprised of

newer cars at the rear of the

arrangement which had many devices

installed including data recorders these

recorded the precise state of the

control surfaces over the course of the

day like how Takami was late to start

breaking at Itami station or how he had

only applied braking in the Fatal Corner

once the train already entered the curve

the speed recorded in the corner was 116

kmph while the speed limit was 70

simulation showed that the train would

have derailed going at any speed of 106

km/ hour but if the train was

approaching well over the speed limit

why did the ATS not trigger like it did

previously in the day the reason for

this is that this line picture in yellow

here had the oldest ATS system installed

by Jr West this old system did not have

beacons in place for over speed knowing

this the focus of the investigation of

the accident became the driver why would

someone be so fixated on trying to

alleviate a delay as small as one or two

minutes well you see when it comes to

Transportation Japan is perfectionist it

has become a standard in the country for

trains to always be perfectly on time it

is what the passengers expect as this is

the case Railway companies also time

their trains to meet at hubs for a quick

transfer this was the exact case when

someone asked Matsushita to apologize

for the delay since they knew that they

would be late for a transfer at

amagasaki station even still why risk

derailment just what consequences could

there be for being late this is where we

will discover that Japan isn't as

perfect as it seems from the outside the

perfectionism comes with a price and

it's not

cheap the troubling statistics of

workers with mental health issues in

Japan has been slowly moving into the

foreground but many are still not aware

of the extent to which the average

Japanese person is pushed to in their

daily life take Takami for example he

had worked the previous day from 1:00

p.m. till 11:00 p.m. his co-workers at

the huntan office said in an interview

that he looked normal nothing seemed off

or different about him they were

actually having a conversation about who

was going to get better sleep since some

of them were waking up at 4 a.m. this

was just before midnight Takami was

waking up at 600 and just like most of

his cowork ERS he skipped shower to have

more time for a train driver in Japan

this was a normal day the real nightmare

begins when you are assigned to

retraining Nick and QQ literally

translated to dayshift education is a

retraining program Jr West would make a

driver take as a punishment for being

late but there was no retraining here

instead drivers would be subjected to

severe verbal abuse and forced to write

reports repenting their mistakes

furthermore they would be placed on

video leing and grass cutting duties

during the day this program was seen by

many as psychological torture Takami

himself had been on the program three

times and it is highly likely that

leading off to the event of the crash he

was trying to avoid going back you may

have noticed in the call to traffic

control that mosita had reported an

overrun at Itami much shorter than in

reality hoping to ease the possible

penalties for Takami unfortunately for

him when they were talking on the

intertrain phone and Takami asked will

you overlook my mistake mosito wasn't

able to answer due to the passenger

knocking on his window he said after the

accident that Takami might have thought

the phone was hung up because the

conductor is

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mad the official investigation concluded

the direct cause of the accident to be

the delay and applying brakes when

entering the corner and the indirect

cause to be the company's driver

management system and the avoidance of

its disciplinary actions to divert the

driver's attention from driving the

train at the time the company thought

that pursuing the individual's

responsibility for an error would

prevent recurrence so we were carrying

out disciplinary action and retraining

program that could be perceived as a

penalty against Personnel this led to

Personnel directing their attention

toward covering up and making excuses

for errors which resulted in a situation

that opened the door door to accidents

as opposed to preventing human

errors in June of 2005 2 months after

the accident masak kaida adviser of Jr

West who played a major role in

enforcing the strict punctuality

resigned followed by the company's

chairman in August the company hasn't

brushed the accident under the carpet

their website homepage also makes clear

mention of the disaster they caused

accountability is one thing however

taking action is another the company has

supposedly undergone restructuring to

focus on safety and the human factor but

I am not so sure that the Japanese

mentality is that easy to get rid of is

history bound to repeat itself has Jrs

gone through actual growth or are there

actions just window dressing I don't

know but I can't help but wonder whether

progress was made or are we still living

the world where

541m rounded the curve successfully for