Index – Abroad – Due to a snake, a train had to be changed at the Japanese Shinkansen

A passenger of a train that entered the Tokyo station in the evening alerted security to the appearance of the reptile. Of course, the problem was not that the “potyautas” did not have a seat ticket, but primarily that he thoroughly terrified the other passengers – six hundred in number.

The snake was quickly captured and later carefully weighed: it was 40 centimeters long.

It was not clear whether the small reptile was a venomous snake or how it ended up on the train. In any case, despite the fear, there was no panic among the passengers, and there were no personal injuries, the Japan Times quoted the spokesperson of the Japanese railways.

The railway company thought it better to replace the entire assembly as a precaution. The flight – with the reptile – arrived in the Japanese capital from Nagoya and would have continued its journey to Osaka. The six hundred passengers got off the train and waited patiently for the next one.

This will be the case in MÁV 2226

– this was the title of the article published in Index just ten years ago, whose author, who socialized on the legendary Vác-Szob railway line, wrote: when he first boarded the Japanese super-express train, the shinkansen, he quite rightly felt as if he was walking in the future. “Incredible precision, improbable cleanliness, silence, and of course the speed, which easily beats the Formula 1 cars driving around the Hungaroring. Then when you realize that this is not the future, but the past, and that the coolest train in the world is already 50 years old, you don’t know whether to cry or laugh.”

It’s hard to imagine

The transport of small pets – dogs, cats and even caged pigeons – is also permitted on Shinkansen, but the transport of snakes is not, for obvious reasons.

It is hard to imagine that a wild snake climbed onto the train at one of the rare stations

said the spokesperson. The transportation of snakes is prohibited, but “we do not check passengers’ luggage,” he added.

The Shinkansen has been running for six decades, since 1964, and of course there have been incidents. Since a fatal stabbing in 2018, guards have patrolled the train. Security measures were stepped up in time for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and last year’s G7 summit.

A year later, in 2019, while speeding at 280 kilometers per hour, the driver of the locomotive only noticed – after traveling four kilometers – that the doors had indeed remained open.

Since then, the Shinkansen has been further developed, so that its top speed reaches 360 kilometers per hour, and during testing it reached 443.

A rare delay

The average speed of Shinkansen is now 285 km/h. Their average deviation from the schedule is 0.2 minutes, or 12 seconds.

In 2017, one of the providers of Shinkansen flights, the Cukuba Express company, apologized to passengers amid heavy apologies after one of its trains rolled out of the station 20 seconds early.

In comparison, the panic caused by the snake is truly unprecedented.

Finding and capturing the creeper, transporting the six hundred passengers, replacing the train, and then boarding the six hundred disciplined passengers with luggage into the new Shinkansen caused a delay of 17 (seventeen) minutes.

(Cover photo: A Shinkansen bullet train stands at a station in the city of Tokyo. Photo: Soeren Stache / picture alliance / Getty Images)

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