# Japanese Shinkansen at Standstill



## ALC Rail Writer (Mar 11, 2011)

> NOBIRU, Japan -- A passenger train with an unknown number of people aboard was unaccounted for Friday in tsunami-hit coastal Japan, according to Kyodo News.
> 
> The East Japan Railway Co. train was running near Nobiru Station on the Senseki Line connecting Sendai to Ishinomaki when a massive quake hit, triggering a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami, the report said, quoting police sources.


Full Faux News story here...

CNN reporting that four trains were missing, three Southbound to Tokyo and one Northbound. Heard it there, but Fox had the only online article I could find.


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## Green Maned Lion (Mar 11, 2011)

I'm mortified to hear of the loss of such impressive equipment.


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## ALC Rail Writer (Mar 11, 2011)

Well it's lost, not 'loss' GML. They don't know where it is, they can't confirm its destroyed.

It speaks to the destruction, these marvels of technology having come to a complete failure of something that survives quakes and shakes every month.


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## Shawn Ryu (Mar 11, 2011)

I am worried more about the people, if they are alright but the train is ripped to shreds, its alright. I hope they are safe.


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## jis (Mar 11, 2011)

ALC_Rail_Writer said:


> Well it's lost, not 'loss' GML. They don't know where it is, they can't confirm its destroyed.
> 
> It speaks to the destruction, these marvels of technology having come to a complete failure of something that survives quakes and shakes every month.


The lost train reported in the article quoted above is not a Shinkansen. It is on the Senseki Line, which is a commuter line around Sendai in Miyagi prefecture, connecting to shore locations. Senseki Line trains look like this:







You can see current status of all JR East Shinkansen Lines on the Shinkansen Status Page.

You can get an idea of the relative location of lines on the Outline of Service page. The greatest damage was around Sendai. The peninsula to the north/east of Tokyo is Chiba prefecture, where there have been significant damage too. Narita is in Chiba prefecture.

Clearly as of this moment 00:25 Zulu of 12th March, all Shinkansen Lines have service suspended and are under maintenance shutdown.

OTOH, it appears that while most lines have service suspended there are a number of major commuter lines in the Tokyo area up and running as notified on the _Kanto_ page. Specifically service is affected much harder (generally suspended) to the north/east of Tokyo, including in Chiba prefecture where Narita Airport is located. Even the famous Yamanote Line in Tokyo is currently suspended. But Yokohama, Chuo, Hachiko and Ito Lines appear to have some service. I.e there is some service on the south/west side of Tokyo.

Frankly it is weird to see the state of things on lines that I have ridden so many times.


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## jis (Mar 13, 2011)

Here is some more info on trains in Japan affected by Tsunami (thanks to Joe Versaggi of NJ-ARP):



> According to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism and JR East, there are 4 missing trains.
> One on JR Senseki Line
> 
> One on JR Kesen-numa Line
> ...


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## jis (Mar 13, 2011)

I know about a dozen people who live in the Tokyo/Yokohama area, with whom I work regularly on international software standards. I have been able to contact them all and they are all doing fine. The day of the earthquake was sort of like our day of 9/11. Lots of folks had to stay overnight away from home simply because they had no way of getting back home. Many walked back 10 - 15 miles since there was no transportation available. But they all said that things were surprisingly orderly, considering. My thought is that Japanese discipline and resilience is something to admire and emulate. Also looking at Tokyo after the earthquake is a stark illustration of what a difference carefully thought out building codes can achieve in the face of an 8.9 earthquake 100 miles away.


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## George Harris (Mar 13, 2011)

Thanks much, Jis for the information. Checking your links, you must read Japanese.

I do have a very strong interest, both personal and professional, about how any Shinkansen trains in the area performed. There have been two previous Shinkansen trainset derailments in earthquakes (The *ONLY* Shinkansen equipment derailments of any kind). One was in Taiwan, one was in Japan itself. In both cases, all the passengers literally walked out. These performances were a strong testimony to the performance of both the Shinkansen equipment and the Shinkansen trackform and the appropriateness of their use in seismically active areas.


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## leemell (Mar 14, 2011)

George Harris said:


> Thanks much, Jis for the information. Checking your links, you must read Japanese.
> 
> I do have a very strong interest, both personal and professional, about how any Shinkansen trains in the area performed. There have been two previous Shinkansen trainset derailments in earthquakes (The *ONLY* Shinkansen equipment derailments of any kind). One was in Taiwan, one was in Japan itself. In both cases, all the passengers literally walked out. These performances were a strong testimony to the performance of both the Shinkansen equipment and the Shinkansen trackform and the appropriateness of their use in seismically active areas.


It is even more remarkable in that the official magnitude of the earthquake has been raised to 9.0


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## Nexis4Jersey (Mar 29, 2011)

Heres some Damage pictures...all the damaged lines will reopen mid April.


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## jis (Mar 29, 2011)

What I have heard so far is Tohoku Shinkansen is running upto a point 100 miles north of Tokyo but not quite to Sendai yet. Service will be restored in stages over the next 8 to 12 weeks.

naturally the Akita and Amori trains will have to wait until Tohoku Shinkansen is restored upto Morioka, since they use the same tracks to Morioka.


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## ALC Rail Writer (Mar 29, 2011)

I enjoy the pictures because you can really see what kind of great design that went in to those columns. The rebar-looking material buckled but didn't break (under such incredible pressure from movement of the ground beneath it and the weight of the line above), it was flexible enough to remain supporting the line even with a gap in the concrete.

Incredible engineering!


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## Ryan (Mar 29, 2011)

Those pictures are amazing. I don't know how you'd even begin to repair a column like that. New rebar cage around the damaged column (from the footer all the way up to the decking) and then new cement pour around it?

What about testing the columns that don't have any visible damage?


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## Nexis4Jersey (Mar 29, 2011)

Ryan said:


> Those pictures are amazing. I don't know how you'd even begin to repair a column like that. New rebar cage around the damaged column (from the footer all the way up to the decking) and then new cement pour around it?
> 
> What about testing the columns that don't have any visible damage?


This Expressway was repaired in 4 days...






Testing is underway as we speak on some lines that weren't that damaged , while reconstruction is underway on the moderately Damaged lines. Mid April everything should be up and running.

Heres Damage to Sendai Station....it was minor mostly signs & lose ceiling falling down...repairs are underway.


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## ALC Rail Writer (Mar 29, 2011)

Just to keep in context, most of this is only in the quake zone-- the place that will be rebuilding for decades is the tsunami zones where everything was just leveled.

And the immediate area around Fukishima, obviously.


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## me_little_me (Mar 30, 2011)

I can't seem to find any updates on the missing train(s) issue. Last thing I read said one train missing. Has it ever been found?Did North Korea kidnap it?


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## jis (Mar 30, 2011)

me_little_me said:


> I can't seem to find any updates on the missing train(s) issue. Last thing I read said one train missing. Has it ever been found?Did North Korea kidnap it?


No trains were missing except in the dramatization of the news media. All trains have been accounted for and surprisingly, relatively few of the passengers on those trains were unaccounted for either. Apparently being mid afternoon trains there were not many people on them and of those many managed to escape the wrath of the Tsunami. Two or three trains were involved in getting washed away by Tsunami. There were a few others that just derailed.


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## Green Maned Lion (Mar 30, 2011)

If we could manage to rebuild and recover as fast as the Japanese...


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## Nexis4Jersey (Apr 1, 2011)

A Few videos towards the damage Sendai Airport area , the Highway is being repaired towards the end of the first video. You can see that theres very little damage to the highway , except for some shifts near the bridges...

Sendai South Road eastbound Southern Part Sendai Sendai Wakabayashi Earthquake Recovery IC → JCT 2011/03/30 shooting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE23Prxe0iw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klW2f6oVb7M


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## alanh (Apr 1, 2011)

Green Maned Lion said:


> If we could manage to rebuild and recover as fast as the Japanese...


We can if we really want to. The Santa Monica Freeway was rebuilt in 66 days after the Northridge quake in 1994.


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## George Harris (Apr 2, 2011)

alanh said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > If we could manage to rebuild and recover as fast as the Japanese...
> ...


Think how fast the Pentagon got rebuilt after 9-11 as well as some parts of the New York subway. I have heard the story from some that NYCTA called the design company that did some of the original designs to ask if they could located the plans. We are talking early 1900's here. The answer was yes. They were then told they wanted to use them rather than go through any redesign process. The only changes were to change some of the riviting to either welds or high strength bolts and some of the built up steel sections to wide flange and H shapes as appropriate. (Structural riviting is essentially a lost art as well as making a weaker connection than either a good weld or one with high strength bolts.)

Part 2: If you see the bare concrete of a concrete column and there is no surface cracking or exposed and bulging rebar, then you do not have to look further. If the column has been boxed it is a different story.


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## Shawn Ryu (Apr 3, 2011)

Too many regulations, politics and red tapes lead to US inefficiency.


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