NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Amagasaki rail crash

The Amagasaki rail crash occurred on 25 April 2005 at around 9:18 local time (0:18 UTC), just after the local rush hour. The Rapid Service bound for Doshisha-mae (a seven-car commuter train) came off the tracks on the JR-West Fukuchiyama Line (JR Takarazuka Line) in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, near Osaka, just before Amagasaki Station, and the front two carriages rammed into an apartment building. The first carriage slid into the first floor parking garage and as a result took days to remove. Of the roughly 700 passengers (initial estimate was 580 passengers) on board at the time of the crash, 107 passengers (in addition to the driver) were killed and 549 others injured. Most passengers and bystanders have said that the train appeared to have been travelling too fast. The incident was Japan's most serious since 1963's Yokohama rail crash where two passenger trains collided with a derailed freight train, killing 162 people. JR-West207 Photographed year : 2003 Photographed person : MASA Photography place : JR Gakken-toshi Line Tokuan Station Train : 207 Series, LOCAL train bound for Matsuiyamate File links The following pages link to this file: Amagasaki rail crash Categories: GFDL images ... JR-West207 Photographed year : 2003 Photographed person : MASA Photography place : JR Gakken-toshi Line Tokuan Station Train : 207 Series, LOCAL train bound for Matsuiyamate File links The following pages link to this file: Amagasaki rail crash Categories: GFDL images ... April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, the basis for civil time, differs by an integral number of seconds from atomic time and a fractional number of seconds from UT1. ... Rush hour in a city A rush hour is a part of the day with busy traffic and hence traffic congestion on the roads and crowded public transport; normally the two periods in a day when people are travelling to or from work or school. ... A Connex commuter train stands by the platform in Melbourne, Australia Regional rail systems, or commuter rail systems, usually provide a rail service through a central business district area into suburbs or other locations that draw large numbers of people on a daily basis. ... West Japan Railway Company (西日本旅客鉄道株式会社 Nishi Nihon Ryokaku Tetsudô Kabushiki Gaisha), commonly known as JR-West (JR西日本 JR Nishi Nihon), is one of JR companies in Japan that covers western Honshu. ... The Fukuchiyama Line (ç¦çŸ¥å±±ç·š) is a railway line of West Japan Railway (JR-West) between Osaka and Fukuchiyama, Japan. ... Amagasaki (尼崎市; -shi) is a city located in Hyogo, Japan. ... Hyōgo Prefecture (兵庫県 Hyōgo-ken) is located in the Kinki region on Honshu island, Japan. ... Osaka Castle, Ōsaka-jō Umeda district of Osaka Location in Japan Osaka City listen? (大阪市; Ōsaka-shi) is the third-largest city in Japan, with a population of 2. ... Amagasaki Station (尼崎駅) Amagasaki Station (JR) Amagasaki Station (Hanshin) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... An <<a href=b class=external free title=b>b>apartment building</<a href=b class=external free title=b>b>, <<a href=b class=external free title=b>b>block of flats</<a href=b class=external free title=b>b> or <<a href=b class=external free title... 1963 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Yokohama rail crash occurred on November 9, 1963 between Tsurumi and Shinkoyasu stations on the Tokaido Main Line in Yokohama city (about 30 km from Tokyo), Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, when two passenger trains collided with a derailed freight train, killing 161 people. ... Cargo is a term used to denotes goods or produce being transported generally for commercial gain, usually on a ship, plane, train or lorry. ...

Cause

Investigators have focused on speeding by the 23-year-old driver, Ryujiro Takami (who is among the dead), as being the most likely cause of the accident. It is claimed that he overshot the last station on the line before the wreck, causing a 90 second delay. Investigators speculate that the driver may have been attempting to make up this lost time by increasing the train's speed beyond customary limits. Many reports from surviving passengers indicate that the train was travelling faster than normal. In mid-2004, the same driver had been reprimanded for overshooting a station by 100 meters. 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Japanese culture is quite strict when it comes to punctuality, with commuters often depending on near-perfect timing on the part of trains to commute to and from work on time. This is because at stations (including the train's next scheduled stop, Amagasaki Station) trains meet on both sides of the same platform to allow people to transfer between express and local trains running on the same line. As a result a small delay in one train can significantly cascade through the timetable due to the tightness of the schedule. Delays of six seconds on the Shinkansen line are worried about, while in many countries delays of 30 or 40 seconds are considered the norm. Amagasaki Station (尼崎駅) Amagasaki Station (JR) Amagasaki Station (Hanshin) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Shinkansen 0 Series at Fukuyama Station, April 2002 Shinkansen 500 Series at Kyoto Station, April 2002 300 (Left) and 700 Series Shinkansen at Tokyo Station The Shinkansen (Japanese: æ–°å¹¹ç·š) is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. ...

Drivers face financial penalties for lateness as well as being forced into harsh and humiliating "training" programs; a few have been terminated without pay altogether. At least one other driver committed suicide recently following management harassment and threats of job termination when he made an unscheduled stop for a safety check, the union alleges. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

The speed limit on the segment of track where the derailment happened was 70 km/h (43.5 mph). A data recorder in the rear of the train (the rear cars were quite new and equipped with many extra devices) later showed that the train was moving at 100 km/h (62 mi/h) at that point, but investigators estimate that the train would have had to be going approximately twice the speed limit to spontaneously derail, which is faster than the carriages were capable of propelling themselves. At least one report has suggested investigators are examining the possibility there were stones on the line. A speed limit is the maximum speed allowed by law for vehicles on a road. ... Kilometre per hour (American spelling: kilometer per hour) is a unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector). ... Miles per hour is a unit of speed, expressing the number of international miles covered per hour. ...

Japanese building codes currently do not regulate the distance between train lines and residential buildings due to high confidence in the engineering of the rail system. Railway lines often pass within several metres of apartment buildings in metropolitan areas. The metre is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: SystÃ¨me International dUnitÃ©s). ...

Aftermath

Amongst other things, the Ministry of Land and Transportation has asked all railway companies to update their automatic stopping systems so that trains would brake automatically to slow down as they approach sharp curves.

It is believed that a contributing factor in the accident was the JR West's policies of schedule punctuality. As a result of this, Masataka Ide, JR West adviser who played a major role in enforcing the punctuality of the companies trains, announced that he would resign in June 2005 at the company's annual shareholder meeting, with the company's chairman and president resigning in August. June is the sixth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four with the length of 30 days. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Note: as an adjective (stressed on the second syllable instead of the first), august means honorable. ...

The section where the crash occurred, between Amagasaki and Takarazuka stations, was re-opened for service on June 19, 2005. The speed limits were decreased for the straight and curved rail sections around the accident site, formerly 120 km/h (straight zone) and 70 km/h (curved zone), currently 95 km/h (straight zone) and 60 km/h (curved zone). June 19 is the 170th day of the year (171st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 195 days remaining. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...

There were some people who were praying when the re-opened trains passed near the building where the accident occurred. One passenger said, "I like having a quick train, but JR needs more safety to make passengers secure. JR have to make sure of the train safety."

Similar accidents

Too fast around sharp curve

The Malbone Street Wreck, also known as the Brighton Beach Line Accident of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT), was a rapid transit railroad wreck that occurred November 1, 1918, beneath the intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Avenue, and Malbone Street, in the community of Flatbush, Borough of Brooklyn, New... Link title1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... In the Salisbury rail crash of 30 June 1906, a passenger train failed to take a very sharp curve at the station, hitting another train. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... In the Sutton Coldfield train disaster of 23 January 1955, an express passenger train from York to Bristol, England, took the sharp curve into the station at 60 mph (97 km/h) or twice the permitted speed. ... The Camp Mountain train disaster occurred at approximately 9:48am on May 5, 1947 when a crowded picnic train derailed on a sharp left-hand curve between Ferny Grove station and Camp Mountain stations on the now-closed Dayboro line, approximately 20km northwest of Brisbane, Queensland Australia. ... 1947 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... The Waterfall train disaster happened on January 31, 2003 in Australia. ... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Morpeth in Northumberland has a very sharp curve on a otherwise fast section of the East Coast Main Line railway. ...

Failure to implement Stop and Examine

The Stop and Examine rule on railways allows, if not requires, train crew to stop a train if they hear strange sounds or vibrations. ... This picture illustrates the destruction of the rear passenger cars. ...

Contents

Cause

Aftermath

Similar accidents

Too fast around sharp curve

Failure to implement Stop and Examine

See also

References