
Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger - hudibras
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/01/japan-keeps-this-defunct-train-station-running-for-just-one-passenger/423273/
======
TeMPOraL
Lovely story. Hats off to Japan Railways. I'm also happy that The
Atlantic/Citylab decided to publish this story. And thanks 'hudibras for
submitting it here!

They say that it's the money that makes the world turn, and love only keeps it
together. It would be easy for the Railways to ignore that girl. There's no
economical reason to keep that station open. It's a waste of time and
resources. And yet, someone decided to make that random act of kindness, for a
single passenger.

It's a symbol. It represents the best side of our nature. That even in this
big and complex world, full of heavy machines and complicated systems, we're
still humans, and we care for one another. That we aren't slaves to the
processes we brought into existence.

Random acts of kindness like that are happening every day around us. I think
that as a society, we need to pay more attention to them. They bring hope and
inspiration, which is infinitely better than yet another outrage.

And that girl, she will have one hell of a story to tell to her future
friends.

\--

The article links to a Facebook page with some more photos:

[https://www.facebook.com/cctvnewschina/posts/110978428906239...](https://www.facebook.com/cctvnewschina/posts/1109784289062390)

~~~
hkmurakami
The thing is, they (the headline) say "Japan", but this only happened because
it's way out in the countryside where people have a "village mentality" of
helping each other out (but the trade off is that everyone sticks their nose
in your business). Japan railways itself split into several separate companies
upon privatization.

This would never happen in Tokyo. As much as we think of the country as being
monolithic (in many ways it is), there are great differences between different
regions of the country (much like any country).

Tokyo is a place where a train being 2 minutes late causes ire (and a train
conductor once killed himself for a mistake as trivial as this). It's a place
where if a person jumps into the train to kill themselves, many will curse
under their breaths about being late to work. It's a place where if you faint
in the train concourse during the morning rush hour, no one will stop to help
you. It's a place where young mothers with strollers are given stinkeye on
public transit. If you ask someone (in fluent Japanese) to take a photo for
you, you will often be completely ignored. Tokyo is _cold_.

I agree with you that this story represents the good in us all. But Japan is
like a black box to those who don't live there. I would caution you against
idolizing it on a national level as a result of stories like this.

~~~
rangibaby
> Tokyo is a place where a train being 2 minutes late causes ire (and a train
> conductor once killed himself for a mistake as trivial as this).

The driver going too fast from being late was the cause of a (100+ fatalities)
train accident about 10 years ago.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_rail_crash](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_rail_crash)

> It's a place where if a person jumps into the train to kill themselves, many
> will curse under their breaths about being late to work.

The rail operator will also send a large bill to the jumpers family.

~~~
Joeri
> The rail operator will also send a large bill to the jumpers family.

Isn't this the case in most countries? I suspect they do it to discourage
other jumpers, since if you jump you know you're saddling your family with a
debt.

As a society we could avoid these things if we provided a legal path to
requesting to be euthanised, a legal self-determination on the end of your own
life. In my country you can request it, but you must be medically found by
multiple doctors to be under unbearable and untreatable pain. If we made such
a mechanism more inclusive, we could get rid of jumpers, as well as having an
opportunity to turn the ship around for people considering suicide.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Unless the jumper is under the age of majority the family are not responsible
for the debts of the deceased in any country I know of. Is it different in
Japan? See [http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/what-happens-to-debts-when-
someon...](http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/what-happens-to-debts-when-someone-dies)
for instance.

~~~
occamrazor
The family isn't, but the estate of the deceased might be.

------
sandworm101
Only girl in the village? They are going to close the line when she graduates.
Therefore we can surmise there aren't any other younger girls. So much for
having a social life. There are parts of Japan where children just aren't
around anymore. Towns are becoming extended retirement homes. That's the truly
depressing side of this story.

At least this is happening today, when the few remaining kids in such
situations can connect via technology.

~~~
hkmurakami
Generally speaking, the population of Japan is going down and the population
of the Greater Tokyo area is going up.

Once youth hits college or working age, they disproportionately head for the
capitol.

But then there's a small counter current where younger (say, 30's) are moving
back to their original prefectures as they realize that they might be able to
afford a better QoL making less money but also paying much less in
expenditures.

~~~
jobu
_With the country’s record-low birthrate, aging population, and the threat of
losing a third of its population by 2060, Japan faces a number of crises..._

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few decades. Many
European countries have similar problems with low fertility rates, but Japan
has the additional disadvantage of being extremely xenophobic. While other
countries may be able to bolster their populations with immigrants and
refugees it seems unlikely Japan's culture will allow that.

~~~
hkmurakami
I completely (and unfortunately) agree. This population pattern manifests in
so many countries. The United States would be in this situation if not for our
immigration inflow. South Korea actually has an even lower birthrate than
Japan. China has a smaller population base in its youth vs its middle aged
segment as a result of their one child policy [1].

I wonder... will _all_ developed nations engage in a war for productive
immigrants in order to prevent a population pyramid based collapse of their
economies?

[1] [http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-
pyramids/china-p...](http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-
pyramids/china-population-pyramid-2014.gif)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Count Europe out of it for now. If I'm to believe the things I see and read
all the time, most of the EU population is rapidly turning _against_
immigration. It's a huge issue on the continent now, and it causes tensions
between people and local governments - the latter are being painted as giving
out free aid to immigrants while not being able to care for their own people.
Population pyramid is a distant concern, when the commonly held fears are that
a) immigrants are trying to "steal our jobs", and b) the whole Europe will get
slowly converted to Islam if we keep letting them in.

~~~
7952
It seems to me that the labour market issues we face would exist regardless of
how many immigrants are let in. In the long term jobs are at risk from
automation. We have fewer middle income people who can afford or are willing
to pay high income tax rates.

~~~
TeMPOraL
True - but machines tend to sneak in unnoticed, while immigrants, and for us
especially Muslim immigrant, are obvious boogeymen. They are human, they are
there on TV and newspapers, you can point your finger at them and say "it's
their fault!".

It's yet another topic that lets public avoid having a discussion about real,
coming issues.

------
Animats
Japan keeps the entire island of Hokkaido running for too few people.[1] The
population is dropping rapidly. Most infrastructure is funded nationally, and
the rest of the country pays for Hokkaido. Partly because it's only about 12
miles from Russia at the closest point, and Japan doesn't want Russia moving
in.

[1] [http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03802/](http://www.nippon.com/en/in-
depth/a03802/)

~~~
dermotbrennan
I'm Irish and out of interest I looked up the area of Hokkaido to see how it
compares to the island of Ireland and they're actually pretty close - Hokkaido
is 83,453KM2 with a population of 5.5M versus Ireland 84,421KM2 with 6.3M. So
it is funny to me when you say "Japan keeps the entire island of Hokkaido
running for too few people".

Of course, Irelands population is growing while Hokkaido's is dropping...

------
CydeWeys
Well it's not that much different from a school bus that only picks up a
single student at a particular bus stop, right?

~~~
pcurve
considering the time it takes to decelerate, stop, accelerate, making this
stop adds at least a full minute or minute and a half to one way journey.

Everybody who is taking the train during the same leg as her, is essentially
chipping in 1 minute of their time to support her transportation.

And I think that's just beautiful.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Consider also the _energy_ it takes to do those maneuvers. And that the
station needs to be maintained; even though it doesn't seem to be staffed, the
cost of keeping it in shape over many years was likely nonzero. I am not a
train expert, but I suppose that stations require additional infrastructure -
like lights and semaphores - which also needs to be maintained and regularly
tested. Then you can start pricing in the opportunity cost of the land that
could be sold or put to different use. And the organizational overhead of
adjusting schedules to match the girl's lesson plan. It adds up to some
considerable costs, of which the company management was surely aware...

...and yet they chose to ignore it. That is indeed just beautiful.

~~~
jsmeaton
They were already paying it though. It wasn't an additional cost they had to
make. It was a cost they chose not to cut for a period of 3 years. I agree
with you, it is beautiful.

------
desdiv
>“Why should I not want to die for a country like this when the government is
ready to go an extra mile just for me,” one commenter wrote on CCTV’s Facebook
page. “This is the meaning of good governance penetrating right to the
grassroot level. Every citizen matters. No Child left behind!”

Ironically, the railway is a private one, i.e. Japan Railways Hokkaido[0] is
private corporation, not a government agency. And yet the company executives,
and to a lesser extent, the shareholders, okayed this arrangement. I can't
imagine this happening anywhere outside of Japan.

There's a similar phenomenon in the UK called "ghost trains"[1] that's only
superficially similar. Basically there's a ton of bureaucracy in closing down
a line, so instead of actually closing a line, we just run an unscheduled and
unannounced "ghost train" through it once a week.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_Railway_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_Railway_Company)

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-
sec...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-secret-ghost-
trains)

~~~
jpatokal
_Japan Railways Hokkaido[0] is private corporation, not a government agency_

Notionally. In practice, their operations are fairly minutely controlled --
sorry, "guided" \-- by various levels of government, which explains, among
many other things, why the JRs continue to operate tons of lines that are
loss-making.

~~~
pilsetnieks
It's public transportation, it's heavily regulated by national and/or
municipal governments in most countries.

------
hngiszmo
Heart-warming story but too much praise for the government for my taste.

What are the opportunity costs of not shutting down this platform years ago?
And of getting the train delayed by 40s twice a day for who knows how many
passengers plus some minor costs like acceleration, meetings to change the
schedule etc. Considering all this it would almost certainly be cheaper to
provide her with a taxi at the train cost, maybe only to the next train stop.
Maybe given the choice of getting a taxi twice a day or getting the
compensation in cash, the girl would even have taken the money and moved
closer to school.

~~~
mrob
Social equality has value. Other people might be resentful if she were given
cash or a taxi. Keeping the station open is a strong signal of support for
treating people equally. People who approve of this will have an improved
opinion of Japan Railways, and that goodwill has value too.

~~~
canthonytucci
I'm not sure I follow. I understood it that they're keeping the station open
solely for her and stopping the train to align with her schedule.

They're not (to my knowledge) doing this for anyone else, so it seems to me
like she's being given extra special treatment that has a net negative (albeit
small) effect on the other users of the system and the environment.

It made me smile though.

~~~
mrob
Being a high school student, presumably she didn't choose to live there. If
the station closes it looks like she's being punished for something that
wasn't her fault. It seems unfair/unequal because none of the other riders are
being treated that way. The "unfairness" of making the other riders wait is
much less salient because they were doing it already and it's only a short
wait. Looking it at from a purely utilitarian point of view gives results that
conflict with common human intuition (technically you could assign monetary
values to "image of fairness", "social harmony", etc. but that's rarely if
ever done because it's so difficult). I'm not the only person approving of
keeping the station open despite the cost, so I can't be the only person to
value these vague/intuitive social values.

~~~
canthonytucci
I wonder if the train company just decided to keep the train running without
consulting with the girl's family and proposing other options.

------
han_stimme
That's such a warm story and especially this is from the largest Chinese TV
press CCTV.

Being as a Chinese, years ago the news of Japan were always about politics,
island disputes, refusing to apologize for WWII etc. It is good to have
something positive and nice about the neighbor.

Wish the world would become less biased to any country.

------
c3534l
Wouldn't it be both cheaper, and friendlier to the environment to hire a
person chauffeur for her? This is outrageously inefficient. Public transport
only becomes worth it when it achieves relatively high ridership.

~~~
hkmurakami
This station is on an existing, operational line that would run trains on the
tracks even if she weren't there (and this is what is going to happen once she
graduates).

So the marginal cost of stopping at this station is actually not that large.

~~~
c3534l
I was under the impression that it was the line that was underused, not just a
stop on the line. I suppose that makes things pretty different, especially
since I think Japanese lines tend to go out farther to pick people up in
general.

------
rms_returns
Yeah, most developed countries are like that. I remember visiting England in
2010 for my company work and the city buses used to ply even with two
passengers on board!

OTOH, in the country where I live (India), private vehicles won't ply unless
they are compressed upto 70% of the capacity! That's the BEP where they could
make even a meager profit!

------
linhchi
There is an article saying this romanticized story is a bit too much:

[http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/remote-
hokkaido-t...](http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/remote-hokkaido-
train-station-stays-open-for-one-high-school-girl-perhaps-not)

------
elcapitan
This is similar in some parts of the Eastern German countryside, where
population is going down and the pragmatic solution for transport is to have
buttons in regional trains (like in busses in cities) that you can use to stop
at old stations where basically nobody lives anymore.

------
pmiller2
There's a general term for these things: ghost stations
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_station)).

~~~
facetube
BBC covered a similar situation in Britain. One of the arguments for keeping
them running: inactive lines quickly fall in to disrepair (physically or
legally/procedurally), which could actually end up costing more, assuming
demand is projected to increase and the line would have to be reopened.

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-
sec...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-secret-ghost-
trains)

~~~
jamessb
Also, the cost of actually closing a station is not negligible. From the same
article:

 _Closing down a line is cumbersome. There must first be a transport appraisal
analysing the effect of a closure on passengers, the environment and the
economy. The proposal is submitted to the Department of Transport and at that
point its details must be published in the press, six months ahead of the
closure. Then comes a 12-week consultation period, during which time anyone is
welcome to protest; public hearings are sometimes held, especially if the
closure is controversial. Then, finally, the plans are submitted to the Office
of Rail and Road, who decide if the line closes.

As a result it often costs less – in terms of time, paperwork and taxpayers’
money – to keep a line running at a bare minimum._

------
baldajan
This story, like many, brings warm feelings to me. I lived in Japan for 5 mo
during a student exchange (Kyoto) and I can say, that even though there was at
least 3-4 different train lines operated by different companies in Kyoto
alone, it was still a joy to use (even though I did complain at why so many
train cos on the region from time to time).

It's also a nice change of tone of the eminent doom of Japan written by so
many. Like so many countries, Japan has its faults, but it also has a very
bright side.

------
droithomme
This is very nice and part of Japanese culture. People focus on asian cultures
as being communal, but part of asian communal thinking is actually great
respect for the striving of the lone individual.

The train stops here until she graduates and then the stop will be retired.
It's a reasonable decision, even if not an economic one.

------
irixusr
This story is another example of how mismanaged the Japanese rail system has
become. It would be cheaper, and _more environmentally friendly_ , to pick
this girl up in a Escalade limousine, provide a tutor to review her lesson
plan, and then have the car idle in the parking lot all day.

We can have a conversation about how changing demographics have created this
situation. Whether or not the urbanization of Japanese society is a good
thing. On the future role of trains in Japan. Why Japanese are giving up on
sex and baby making (kinda hard to maintain and justify an infrastructure
built for 150 million people when your pop. is shrinking at 0.7% annually).

But this story should not be lauded, as it is a symptom of the sickness of
their society today.

------
rangibaby
Japan is exotic enough from a Western perspective that outsiders often have an
exaggerated opinion of it, both positive and negative. The next time you see
someone gushing about how wonderful Japan is or complaining about how the
country never "paid" for WWII or how Japan is doomed because (old people,
Fukushima, etc) please try to remember that it is a normal country with human
beings living there that is pretty much like anywhere else in the world.

------
ekianjo
if they only want to serve her, it would be much cheaper to have a taxi or a
shuttle bus drive for her morning and evening. To me this is another example
of Japan's everlasting inefficiencies long after things stop making sense.
Just like every company in Japan keeps fax machines at work just because, you
know, they have to.

------
jmadsen
Just went to post this and see it has 564pts already - so glad others find
this as important as I do.

------
lazyant
Nice.

Train stops 7am and 5pm, sure schoolchildren have long days in Japan.

------
ommunist
Clever PR. However, there are many homeless children in Japan. Where are
trains for them?

------
mback00
Political connections - nufsed.

------
accpass09
Japan need mass third world immigration, you can't stay so homogenus for this
long. Not acceptable for a first world country to do. They must take
responsibility like Sweden, there is war now and they must accept refugees
from Syria and rest of the middle east.

~~~
k__
On the other hand it's a good big scale experiment.

Lets wait 20-40 years and see who got it worse.

------
mback00
Please use Occam's razor: student that can maintain her anonymity in the face
of this report + bureacracy that maintains a service for /one/ person =
Political connections

~~~
jtolmar
That's not how Occam's razor works. Neither explanation - political
connections vs kindness - is simpler than the other.

You're just using a more prestigious-sounding name for cynicism.

