Meitetsu railroad, based in Nagoya, changed its timetable at the beginning of the month. Besides the many improvements, some services have deteriorated. Among these are several trains during the morning rush hour that have been shortened. One of these is a train I take in the morning, now running with six cars instead of the eight cars previously.
As this train has always been well filled, six cars are simply not enough as could be seen the other morning: The passenger squeeze into the train took more time than usual. Because of this, it ran three minutes behind schedule.
At the end of last month the government's final report of the 2005 Amagasaki train crash (in which 107 were killed) was published. That JR West train in Hyogo Prefecture was less than two minutes behind schedule.
I wonder when we'll see a similar accident in Nagoya, as the decisions by Meitetsu management to shorten trains and cut costs put high pressure on train crews to make up for delays and then drive faster than allowed.
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