And Now JR

Seems the only reason there were such long delays on some of JR's train lines yesterday after a relatively weak 4 (Japanese scale) earthquake was because they didn't have enough of those cute little go-cart type cars for inspecting the tracks. I understand that over 200,000 people were delayed by up to two or three hours yesterday.

What's the deal?

We've been hearing for a number of years about all the preparation the government has been doing to prepare us for the Big One, and a level 4 shuts down major train lines for hours.

Oh well, at least it wasn't the Big One, right?
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Yes, it wasn't. I do know how you feel. I have been ready to restructure and support my house here for some time now--lack of funds being the delay, more than anything else.

I was told a week or so back, not to worry about it so much, because if the 'big one' came, most people's houses would fall down anyway. But...as for trains? I have now idea...maybe they just wanted to show everyone that they were being carefull after the seeming run of train related accidents in the past year.

Did you make it to your destination OK?

Thanks for asking, but I wasn't out on the mass trans system. Was sitting nice and cozy at home. It's just that you'd think by now they'd have such inspection systems down pat.

I'm frequently faced with the fact that in Japan there seems to be a lot of talk but no action. That just seemed another case in point.

I suppose in all fairness, though, many or all governments around the world are the same way, right?



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