The Amagasaki derailment occurred in Amagasaki, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, on 25 April 2005 at 09:19 local time, just after the local rush hour
Of the roughly 700 passengers, 106 passengers and the driver were killed, and 562 others were injured. The accident remains the fifth-deadliest train crash in Japanese history
Investigators primarily focused on the speeding by the 23-year-old driver, later identified as being the most likely cause of the derailment. Twenty-five minutes before the derailment, the driver had run a red signal, causing the automatic train stop (ATS) to bring the train to a halt.[2] The train had also overshot the correct stopping position at an earlier stop at Itami Station with more than 3 carriages, requiring him to back up the train, and resulting in a 90-second delay,[1] about four minutes before the disaster.[2] By the time the train passed Tsukaguchi Station at a speed of 120 km/h (75 mph), the delay had been reduced to 60 seconds.[1]
Investigators speculate that the driver may have been trying 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 traveling at a faster than normal speed. Furthermore, it is speculated that the driver may have felt stressed because he would have been punished for the two infractions, and may have not been totally focused on driving. Ten months before the crash, the driver had been reprimanded by the train's operator, the West Japan Railway Company (JR West), for overshooting a station platform by 100 metres (330 ft).[2]
JR West is very strict when it comes to punctuality,[3] and commuters often depend on near-perfect timing on the part of trains to commute to and from work on time. This is because at JR West stations (including the derailed train's next scheduled stop at Amagasaki Station) trains meet on both sides of the same platform to allow people to transfer between rapid and local trains running on the same line. As a result, a small delay in one train can cascade through the timetable for the rest of the day due to the tightness of the schedule. Immediately after the crash occurred, some of the mass media pointed to the congested schedule of the Fukuchiyama Line as an indirect factor. Cumulative changes over the previous three years had reduced the leeway in the train's schedule from 71 to 28 seconds over the fifteen minutes between Takarazuka and Amagasaki stations.
Drivers for JR West face financial penalties for lateness as well as being forced into harsh and humiliating retraining programs known as nikkin kyōiku (日勤教育, "dayshift education"), which include weeding and grass-cutting duties during the day.[4][5] The final report officially concluded that the retraining system was one probable cause of the crash.[6] This program consisted of severe verbal abuse, forcing the employees to repent by writing extensive reports. Many experts saw the process of nikkin kyōiku as punishment and psychological torture, not retraining.[2] The driver had also received a non-essential phone call from the general control station at the time that he was rounding the bend.[7]
Seconds Before Disaster Episode
Glorifying this is like glorifying the fact that the US has no mandatory paid off days or parental leave. The ticket isn't really an apology, they literally said it's proof for your boss, that your tardiness isn't your fault and therefore you shouldn't be reprimanded for it.