Friday 15 June 2012

Odds and sods from the trains - JR and its patrons


In Tokyo most of the accidents with trains are human collisions.
In Yamagata... antelopes

And in Akita... bears...
A JR promotion sign advertising the Chokkai Sanroku sen


JR East is now promoting local rail lines that are not JR.During the great Japan National Rail disaggregation, a lot of small loss making lines were taken over by local governments who didn't want to see them closed down. Since the earthquake there seems to be greater co-operation between JR East and some of the local lines - it suits JR East because in many cases the beautiful scenery is on the less travelled lines. The is promotion is a poster for the Yuri Kogen - Chokai Sanroku line in the south of Akita near  Ugo Honjo.
JR Courtesy
On the Saikyo line JR has conveniently put up diagrams of which are the most crowded carriages - since it's a seriously overcrowded line that has minimal capacity to run more services.  The red carriages are super full, the orange very full, and the green less full - though that is very relative.
Tokyo JR stamps
Each JR station in Tokyo has its own stamp. I love them. My visitors with children love them.
They are very very cool and I have been meaning to get a book to collect them all.  Fortunately I hadn't done
so as now they are in a variety of colours. Even cooler!
Subway courtesy

A polite note on the Namboku line letting people know that the seat
is dirty and and is being temporarily covered - please be careful.
This dead heading actually means the train terminates here.

The Hanawa line in Akita

Japanese ghosts have no feet, but this is not a ghost,
just a woman in Akita who is sitting seiza on the train.
(Seiza being traditional style with feet tucked underneath.)



The Chuo line in Tokyo
A surprising scene of a woman cleaning her baby's ears with a cotton bud on the train.  Aside from it being a bit strange and anti social to be cleaning ears in public,  it seemed a little dangerous with  the Chuo line having the worst record for suicides & relatively high speed collisions are not all that uncommon.

9 comments:

Rurousha said...

You are my heroine forever for doing a trains post. More! Please! Please?

Perhaps it's because I'm from a country with very limited public transport (and what there is, is horrendously bad), but I love Japan's trains! Rush hour excluded.

PS: Just as well Japan doesn't have elephants.

Cecilia said...

Probably the best thing about the ipad is being about to take photos surreptitiously.

I love the trains and I love the consideration of the train companies.
In Aus, there would be no blanket to tell you the seat had been soiled... Someone would probably steal the blanket if they did...

I will use seishun 18 again this summer I think to go to Akita - though am not sure of the road to take - busting to take the Ban'etsu sens...might go for the East Ban'etsu..thought it's a long way around!

Cecilia said...

PS the second best thing about the ipad is being able to use it in class, though I have ethical qualms about provision of technology being outsourced to teachers.

Rurousha said...

Your iPad comments reminded me: how's your favourite uncle, the one who had a stroke?

Rurousha said...

I often wish I could take silent photos with my smartphone, but it's a Japanese phone, in other words, the shutter button sounds like gunfire!

PS: Steal the blanket? Ha, in SA they steal the SEATS! :D

Cecilia said...

Too funny, unless you want to sit down. My sister was advised when cycling around France to take the seat off her bike each night so no-one would steal the bike...
Pretty hard core!

The situation with uncle is dismal. I got banned from visiting completely, and then unbanned - quite clearly. I triple checked that it was OK ... "yes yes in this hospital it's OK" Visited the next day & was banned again that evening. Even though the nurses said very cheerfully to come back any time, and he was clearly happy to see me - got out of bed (with assistance) flicked through the paper through the sumo section.
I got banned but am allowed to visit with Hiro...

Hiro is dragging his feet majorly on sorting it out, which isn't going down very well. But to be fair he tried to have dinner with her this week to see how things are going for her & she didn't want to. But he looks at the grand scheme of family kankei, whereas I think such things can be highly over-rated, at least when people are clearly idiotic.

I really can't understand it - Hiro thinks she might think she looks like a bumpkin with no sense of meiwaku if I go, I wonder if she think I appear like a mistress - hence the chaperoning is OK... no idea. But I feel so so sad for him and very upset with her. A very unhappy situation.

Rurousha said...

Actually, in SA they steal the railway sleepers and the rails themselves. Excellent scrap metal.

You can't go alone but you can go with Hiro? The wife comes across as terribly insecure, at least to me, observing from the sideline.

Aww, man, families. Are they ever NOT complicated? (@_@)

Cecilia said...

A very accurate summation. :(

SomedaysSarah said...

Hiya!

The detailed descriptions of which animal caused the accident made me laugh - and remember my summer job in university. I worked in the Canadian Rockies and we took a staff bus to work every morning. At least once a week we were delayed significantly because of animals: elk, deer, mountain goats, moose, caribou, black bears, grizzlies, or the ever dangerous tourist-who-thinks-they've-spotted-something.

(I wasn't too sure about the translation of kamoshika as antelope so I checked out Wikipedia and it turns out the kamoshika is a variety of what is called serow in English, described as a "goat-like antelope-like mammal"... Huh, you learn something new each day!)