Shinkansen service suspension affects 68,000 people after accident+

OSAKA, July 22 Kyodo -
Services on the Sanyo Shinkansen Line were partially suspended Thursday for
more than eight hours in western Japan after a collision between two
maintenance trains, affecting about 68,000 people, including summer
holidaymakers, West Japan Railway Co. officials said.
Part of a maintenance train derailed after it rear-ended another train at
around 4:20 a.m., disrupting the bullet train operations between Shin-Osaka and
Okayama from the start of the day's services.
But none of the five people on board the trains was injured in the accident
that occurred inside a tunnel between Shin-Kobe and Nishi-Akashi stations in
Hyogo Prefecture, they said.
While the Shinkansen services were resumed at 2:30 p.m., a total of 97 bullet
trains were canceled, according to the officials.
Tatsuya Mano, a JR West official in charge of Shinkansen administration,
apologized at a press conference, saying, ''We are very sorry that due to the
accident trains did not run from the morning at a time when many users are
traveling during the summer holidays.''
In the accident, the third and fourth cars of an eight-car tunnel maintenance
train derailed after it hit a two-car train used to clean the surface of the
rails, according to the officials. The latter train was stationary at the time.
JR West said the maintenance trains are equipped with a collision avoidance
system, which should have detected the train in front from 300 meters distance,
but it failed to activate until the train came to a point only 136 meters away
from the other in the latest case.
The emergency brake was likely applied automatically then but could not stop
the train in time to prevent the collision. The railway operator is
investigating the slow response of the collision avoidance system, it said.
The eight-car train was traveling at 47 kilometers per hour at the time, over
the 40 kph speed limit, according to the company.
Local police officials said the driver of the maintenance train heard alarms
calling for the train to stop but could not apply manual brakes in time.
Both trains had completed their work and were about to return to a rail yard in
Kobe. The two-car train has since returned to the rail yard.
The derailed cars weighed 10 tons each and the work to get them back on the
tracks inside the tunnel took a lot of time, the company added.
A local branch of the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry
instructed JR West to probe the cause of the accident immediately and take
preventive measures.
==Kyodo
2010-07-23 00:22:31