Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Yamanote line suspended (Mar 23 2010)

no one likes to see that!

Apologies for the spelling, this was from my cell phone earlier this evening. The JR Yamanote line, JR Shonan Shinjuku line and the Saikyo lines were all suspended. My normal trip home from Ebisu to Shibuya was somewhat delayed. After some deliberation I worked out the quickest route would be the one stop south on the Hibiya line to Naka-Meguro and one stop north again on the express Minatomirai line to Shibuya. It only took an extra 15 minutes, but I foolishly did not collect a free subway line ticket from the station staff offering them for the alternative routes, so it cost me 260 Yen. When I arrived at Shibuya the trains were still suspended. I look forward to details tomorrow of what happened.

Since there was no point entering Ebisu station I failed to get a photo of the new platform edge doors that have appeared after the long weekend. I'll try and take a shot tomorrow.

Update: it made the front page on the Japan Times printed edition today with a photo of some people being helped off a stuck train. The root cause was an obstacle hanging from overhead wires. More than 2,000 commuters were trapped on trains in the incident that lasted 90 minutes.