THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 24, 2023 at 13:43 JST
Passengers examine the announcement boards on July 24 at JR Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo. (Taishi Sasayama)
Commuters in Tokyo faced a rare and nightmarish problem for their morning commute on July 24: no Yamanote Line trains for most of the morning rush hour.
A technical failure prevented the trains from leaving a storage yard, leaving the loop line frozen for more than four hours.
Train operators noticed around 2:25 a.m. that a signal control system was not working properly at Osaki Station, according to East Japan Railway Co.
From the first scheduled trains at 4:25 a.m. until around 9 a.m., passengers had to make their way using other means. Commuters packed subway trains and routes such as JR East’s Keihin-Tohoku Line and Saikyo Line.
The Asahi Shimbun spoke to several people among the crowd at JR Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo.
“I will be late for work, but I can’t help it,” said a 50-something public servant. He said he would take the Tokyo Metro subway to his office in Meguro.
A woman from Myanmar in her 50s struggled to understand what was going on because announcements at the station were made only in Japanese.
Another passenger, a 16-year-old high school student, looked worried. She said she was late enough already and the disruption made it even worse.
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