Japanese wreck

It's a long time since I've seen this video, but as I recall, the motorman caused this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzZZTA1pAvs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, it was human error (as are many if not most train accidents), but it could have been prevented if the ATS system had overspeed protection, which the version in operation did not.

The video stresses that fear of JR's draconian "retraining" may have caused the driver to act irresponsibly, running his train.

The region has intensive competition between railways for passengers. JR West (not the other railway companies) had a disciplinary policy that was tough, possibly too much so. Unfortunately the driver didn't have the intestinal fortitude to tell the supervisors to stuff it and cracked under the pressure- veteran drivers who are more unionized would have had their union reps back then up in a similar case. He essentially gave up his responsibility for passenger safety- railway drivers are licensed in Japan and have similar responsibilies as aircraft pilots. Anyway, more than labor policy, what was possibly criminally negligent was JR West's failure to install the latest signalling system on this stretch of busy urban railway with numerous sharp curves (I have ridden this stretch of track), as you can never completely predict human behavior, especially the reactions of people to stressful situations (see the recent Amtrak wreck in Philly)

Thank you for your isights, kaitoku. I was wondering if the driver was suicidal. I know the awful feeling you get when, through carelessness, you delay the trains, and the company is going to investigate.
I think that locomotive engineers here in the US, get some sort of government license too. That's something new.

The stretch of line in question, the Fookoochiyama* Line, has seen rapid growth in lineside housing and thus increased ridership over the past twenty years or so. JR West's main competitor there is Hankyu Railways, which runs a very tight ship honed by competition ever since it started as an street car interurban. JR West was running a service schedule with very little room for error- any delay causes further delay as there is no cushion in the schedule. The driver was overrrunning the station platform stops prior to the incident- a sign of stress/lack of concentration. Any delay resulted in a call from the CTC center supervisors- that and the threat of disciplinary action probably made him panic even more. I don't know if he was suicidal- typically in Japan those suffering from those symptoms take their lives alone rather than including/taking it out on others (aka "going postal").

*not true spelling, as the filter somehow ID's the correct spelling as a profanity.

kaitoku wrote:*not true spelling, as the filter somehow ID's the correct spelling as a profanity.

I moderate the Friends of the Rail Forum which uses the same platform as Railroad.Net, and it took us a while to get the "profanity filter" set right. Because that forum uses British/South African English as opposed to US English, we had initially set it to filter the word "arse", until we realised that you couldn't type "Marseilles" without it being filtered out as profanity.

Here's a link to the attractive Hankyu Railway website. http://www.hankyu.co.jp/global/en/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Here's a link to JR West's attractive website. https://www.westjr.co.jp/global/en" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you delve into both these websites, you can find a great deal that is interesting. In JR West the Mizukaze outdoes any other train imaginable for opulence.
And the Hankyu painted cars are a beautiful surprise for this westerner.