Trains Frequently Derailed

Two months before the accident of high-speed train killed forty passengers in China in 2011, there was a train accident in Hokkaido, Japan. The train was derailed in a tunnel and caused fire. Although it killed no passenger, they walked out of tunnel with sooty face. After two year passed, the trains in Hokkaido still keep on being derailed. The reason is clear: lack of maintenance. The Japanese have been proud of safety in their country with few trouble in transportation. But, Hokkaido is making that reputation out of date.

Hokkaido Railway Company, operating all trains in Hokkaido Island, revealed that they found ninety-seven faults in distance between paralleled rails in their investigation. The investigation was conducted after accidents of freight train had consecutively happened. On Thursday, a freight train was derailed in southern part of Hokkaido, marking the fifth accident of freight train from February last year. An investigator of the accident told reporters that he found distance of rails broader than their standard.

The president of the company told that it was caused by lack of communication among workers. For everybody, it was obvious that the company had been running trains without appropriate maintenance. The fact that accidents had been happening even after the accident in 2011 revealed its inappropriate maintenance.

Not only freight trains, passenger trains are consecutively flamed up mainly around engine system. With severe weather in the winter, its diesel engines were working in hard situation and oil leakage caused fire.

However, it is not about maintenance of machine, but of human resource. The president of the railway company admitted that workers could not fix all problems, forgetting some faults during they had been busy for other jobs. Ordinary shortage of manpower declined morale of the workers. An engineer of Limited Express Train broke Automatic Train Stop system with hammer earlier this month. He told that he did it to hide his mistake in its operation while younger interns were watching.

Train system had once been a symbol of the development of Hokkaido. The first railroad was laid for sending coals. Natural resources and agricultural products were transported by trains for heavy industries and urban consumers. After their products became less competitive against foreign products, the train system in Hokkaido was more dependent on passenger trains. To improve the convenience of passengers, the company focused on speed and frequency. As its result, it failed to secure enough staffs for rail maintenance. Before making victim of train accident, the company needs to reshape its structure of human resource.