Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 204 posts

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#41

Post by Gracana »

sandworm101 wrote: post #31
TeMPOraL wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the article implies anywhere that this girl is the only person on the train . She is just the only passenger on her station .

Maybe something is being lost in translation, but the article starts with: "The train makes only two stops—one when a lone high-school student leaves for school and the other when she returns." The train makes two stops, rather than "the train stops here only twice". Both may be true, but the initial statement describes actions of the train rather than the station.

Looks like they changed it:

"The train stops there only twice a day—once to pick up the girl and again to drop her off after the school day is over."

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#42

Post by rtkwe »

hkmurakami wrote: post #9
tempestn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically it just says the station is closing. It's possible the line will remain operational. (The train might be going by there anyway.) Although it did say the schedule was adjusted for the student, so maybe not. Edit, ah, so I guess a bunch of trains go by, and adjusting the schedule basically means deciding which trains stop at that station, not changing when trains run.

Japanese Twitter tells me that once this station closes, there will be a 40 minute section of the railway that won't have any stops. The line itself will remain operational.

Looking at Google Maps the change won't be terribly drastic in reality [0] unless the station just over 3 km further down the line closes too. For a person walking it's a decent distance but for the rest of the passengers there would be very little change. Of course the same could be said for pretty much any station that closed between there before now.

[0] https://goo.gl/maps/cqZBrzvjJJk

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#43

Post by rtkwe »

sandworm101 wrote: post #7

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 c…

They're not closing the line. There's lots of other stops on that same rail line, trains just won't stop at that station any more. Also there's a station about 3 km down the tracks.

Also who's to stay she's staying in the area after graduation.

https://goo.gl/maps/cqZBrzvjJJk

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#44

Post by qrendel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

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…

I have trouble seeing it this way. The money spent running the train could save or improve many other lives instead. It's heartwarming and all, but consider the other people who are being left to die or suffer malnutrition or some other malady that could have been fixed with the resources used to get this girl to and from school.

It could be argued that the hope and inspiration and good feels justify it as a utilitarian decision, or that some portion of the world's energy should be diverted to these sorts of situations anyway - like some sort of lottery - or justified on non-utilitarian grounds. But I can't help but see it as an example of how major global problems continue because humans can't prioritize their caring towards those that need it the most.

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#45

Post by 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.

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#46

Post by rtkwe »

sandworm101 wrote: post #31
TeMPOraL wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the article implies anywhere that this girl is the only person on the train . She is just the only passenger on her station .

Maybe something is being lost in translation, but the article starts with: "The train makes only two stops—one when a lone high-school student leaves for school and the other when she returns." The train makes two stops, rather than "the train stops here only twice". Both may be true, but the initial statement describes actions of the train rather than the station.

It's not the only stop, or even the last stop of the train, at least as it looks on google maps. It's just a poorly worded statement I think.

https://goo.gl/maps/cqZBrzvjJJk

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#47

Post by droithomme »

qrendel wrote: post #44
TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

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…

I have trouble seeing it this way. The money spent running the train could save or improve many other lives instead. It's heartwarming and all, but consider the other people who are being left to die or suffer malnutrition or some other malady that could have been fixed with the resources used to get this girl to and from school. It could be argued that the hope and inspiration and good feels justify it as a utilitar…

Hopefully with your great compassion for others you will be donating most of your income to stop this malnutrition and suffering in the third world that would otherwise be stopping this girl from getting to school.

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#48

Post by hkmurakami »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35
hkmurakami wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (i…

Ah, the gray reality strikes again :). I understand what you're saying and I agree. I am definitely not going to define the entire country by this single act. And you're right - I think that keeping the station open for this girl was only possible because it was a rural area and not a large city. Villages generally tend to be more laid-back, there is a lot more of space to introduce little inefficiencies without caus…

Upon reflection, I want to apologize for the overly pessimistic and harsh tone I chose to use.

Japan is almost always presented to the West from a unbalanced, exaggerated perspective (which has irked me in the past), and upon reading your post, gleaming with optimism, I instinctively reacted by adopting an exaggeratedly grave perspective to attempt to balance it out -- which in retrospect was simply uncalled for.

Thanks for your optimism and hope for the good in all of us. I could use some of that too.

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#49

Post by TeMPOraL »

hngiszmo wrote: post #30

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, ma…

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

I found it weird too after I Googled some more and learned that the Japan Railways[0] is a group of companies that were the result of privatization of national railway system. But I've seen a similar phenomenon in Poland - even though our rail system has also been mostly privatized, people tend to think and talk about it like it's still a government service. I guess that it's because in some places, the concept of "infrastructure" generally pattern-matches to "government".

About your second paragraph - the most heartwarming thing I could imagine about this story would be learning that the company did in fact take into account everything you wrote and then decided to just ignore it. We are homo sapiens, not homo economicus. We have a capacity to care about other people, and caring is an economical inefficiency.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Railways_Group

Re: Japan Keeps This Defunct Train Station Running for Just One Passenger

#50

Post by facetube »

pmiller2 wrote: post #15

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

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...

Post reply on HN