Heavy snow in Japan traps passengers on stranded train in Niigata

[katoftw]

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/12/national/heavy-snow-traps-400-passengers-inside-stranded-train-japan/#.Wlh68tR94sZ

 

 

I could understand their frustration.  But lets be serious, you cannot control mother nature.  Sometimes she wins no matter how good a back up plan is.

[kvp]

1 hour ago, katoftw said:

I could understand their frustration.  But lets be serious, you cannot control mother nature.  Sometimes she wins no matter how good a back up plan is.

Imho it was very lazy from the company to leave people on the train. Sending a locomotive or another train would have been possible, especially if there was another one without passengers right behind it. In the worst case, they could have either coupled up or just briefly connected to allow passengers to board the other train and then it could be brought back to the same station where it dropped off its passengers, so they could also be transported with buses. That is, unless the train was heavily snowed in on both ends, which doesn't look to be the case based on the video.

[katoftw]

Well they did have record snow falls in Niigata and even buses and expressways where closed.  But I guess for some, that still isn't an excuse as their is always a solution huh?

[kvp]

11 hours ago, katoftw said:

 But I guess for some, that still isn't an excuse as their is always a solution huh?

At least the company could have tried to do something, instead of leaving everyone there until morning and leaving the rescue to the families of the passengers. If local people with passenger cars could go there then a train operator could have done the same earlier instead of waiting until most of the passengers were off without their help.

[EH500 (12)]

6 minutes ago, kvp said:

At least the company could have tried to do something, instead of leaving everyone there until morning and leaving the rescue to the families of the passengers. If local people with passenger cars could go there then a train operator could have done the same earlier instead of waiting until most of the passengers were off without their help.

That is indeed not okay. They should have started an evacuation after 2-3 hours.

Iam wondering though why rescue services were not informed by the passengers.

[katoftw]

I guess it is easy for those whom don't deal with this stuff everyday to throw mud at the attempt of the railway.

 

Continued cancelled services due to 77cm of snow of the day.

Railway decided to run this service late in the evening/night in an attempt to get passengers home and not stranded a station.

Attempt failed and I guess it was deemed since roads were closes under 77cm of snow that attempting a rescue in the dark, after midnight in 77cm of snow unsafe since the passengers had heating and toilet.

 

The situation isn't ideal.  But better than attempting a rescue under certain unfavorable circumstances.

 

[cteno4]

It is easy to armchair coach these situations and we really don’t have all the information on the situation. Shelter in place has become a bigger thing in search and rescue with more weighting risks in the evacuation, especially with a lot of people involved. You have to get them out of there and to a better holding area or transport safely. Lots of unknowns here.

 

jeff

[katoftw]

The flip side of the coin.

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/20/national/media-national/stranded-niigata-train-incident-highlights-flaws-social-media/#.WmV839R94sY

[cteno4]

LOL!  How true.

 

Jeff

Edited January 22, 2018 by cteno4

[gmat]

I don't have access to the Japan Times so I don't know if this information about an offer for a Microbus to help stranded passengers on that train.

 

JR East refused local government bus to rescue passengers stranded on snow-stranded train.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180120/p2a/00m/0na/009000c

 

Grant