East Japan Railway, or JR East, said Tuesday that it will resume from Friday operating coupled trains on the Tohoku Shinkansen line, which have been suspended since last week.
JR East suspended the operations in response to an incident in which a coupler connecting the Hayabusa No. 21 and Komachi No. 21 bullet trains on the line, which runs between eastern and northeastern Japan, came unfastened on March 6.
The incident occurred just after the double train left Ueno Station in Tokyo to head for Omiya Station in Saitama Prefecture.
JR East said that the decoupling is believed to have happened because of an electrical abnormality in the Komachi train, although the exact cause has yet to be identified. The operations of coupled trains will be resumed after stopgap measures are taken.
Shinkansen trains, including Hayabusa and Komachi, are connected and disconnected at Morioka Station in Iwate Prefecture and at Fukushima Station in Fukushima Prefecture.
Due to additional work that became necessary following the incident, departures from the two stations are expected to be delayed by about five minutes.
The operations of coupled trains will resume from Friday except for some trains, and the services will operate on a normal timetable from Saturday.
Meanwhile, JR East will conduct its upcoming timetable revision Saturday as planned.
The company, which had a similar decoupling incident on the Tohoku Shinkansen line last September, is under investigation by the government's Transport Safety Board.
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