Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:18 am Post subject:
dochira wrote:
Japan plans $3.1B for high-speed trains
By HANS GREIMEL, Associated Press
Mon Sep 25, 9:10 AM ET
TOKYO - A Japanese railroad will invest $3.1 billion to develop high-speed magnetic trains over the next decade, the company said Monday, just days after a crash of an experimental magnetic train in Germany killed 23 people.
The spending by Central Japan Railway Co. will expand a test track just west of Tokyo and fund new magnetically levitated, or "maglev," trains carriages.
The move comes as Germany and Japan jostle to win new customers for the high speed trains, which are the fastest in the world. Skimming over a guideway on powerful magnetic fields without touching the track, they can reach speeds of up to 360 miles per hour.
The technology is still under development, although there are two short stretches of commercially operating maglev trains, one in Shanghai and the other in the central Japanese city of Nagoya.
German Traffic Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee was in China at the time of Friday's accident, trying to urge officials there to extend their use of the German-made technology along the Shanghai route, a contract that Japan competed for but lost.
"We can't speak for the German company," Central Japan Railway spokesman Taro Yoshikawa said. "But we've conducted extensive testing on our technology, and from a safety point of view, there are no concerns."
There have been no fatalities in test runs of the company's maglev, and the train has set a speed record with passengers aboard of 360 miles per hour, Yoshikawa said.
The German-built maglev in Shanghai has safety systems that would prevent the type of crash that occurred last week, said Chang Wensen, a professor at the Maglev Research Center at the National University of Defense Technology in the central Chinese city of Changsha.
That line has computerized systems that prevent two trains from being on one track at the same time and that automatically stop the train if there is an obstacle ahead, Chang said.
Chinese experts already were reassessing the Shanghai maglev's safety following an Aug. 11 fire in an electrical storage compartment beneath the passenger cabin that created large amounts of smoke but caused no deaths or injuries. Preliminary investigations attributed that mishap to an electrical fault.
"The accidents in Shanghai and Germany will have some impact but will not hinder the development of the maglev," Chang said.
"The maglev technology itself has no problem," he said. "The problems are in the running of the maglev."
The operators of the line, Shanghai Maglev Transport Development Co., had no comment Monday.
Shanghai's maglev line covers the 19 miles to the city's Pudong International Airport in just eight minutes at speeds of up to 270 mph. Launched in early 2004, it is the world's first commercially operating magnetic levitation train line.
Central Japan Railway said over the weekend that the German crash won't affect its testing plans, but the Japanese government said it is closely watching what German investigators conclude about the cause of the crash.
Central Japan Railway completed a maglev test run Saturday with about 100 passengers, and the company is still planning a special event on Nov. 22-24, inviting 1,800 people to ride the train at its test center.
Japan's only commercially operating magnetic-levitation train, the local Linimo train near Nagoya, carries passengers on a 5.5-mile track at top speeds of 62 miles an hour.
Planners eventually want Japan's maglev service to connect Tokyo and Osaka with high speed trains, shortening the trip between Japan's two biggest cities to an hour, compared with the Shinkansen bullet train's 2.5 hours.
Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 8550 Location: California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:20 am Post subject:
Tu_triky wrote:
amazing...the current trains are so dayem fast already!
That'll make day trips to Osaka and vice versa, so much more possible. I was debating whether to spend the extra money on a rail pass to go to Osaka and/or Kyoto/Nara for a day, but decided against it.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:25 am Post subject:
dochira wrote:
That'll make day trips to Osaka and vice versa, so much more possible. I was debating whether to spend the extra money on a rail pass to go to Osaka and/or Kyoto/Nara for a day, but decided against it.
i don't think you'll regret...based on my experience there are more than enough things to do in the Greater Tokyo area to fill your time.
Joined: 13 Oct 2004 Posts: 8550 Location: California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:28 am Post subject:
Tu_triky wrote:
i don't think you'll regret...based on my experience there are more than enough things to do in the Greater Tokyo area to fill your time.
All things considered, my two previous trips covered 0.001% of stuff to do in Tokyo. This time, I want to see the NHK Studio Park experience. Heck they might be taping a show at that time.
Going back to the story, that'll make it faster than flying a plane. Could you imagine if SF and LA were only 1 hour apart? (Yes I know that Southwest does it, but will all the airport security and stuff, it's more like 2.5 hours at least).
All things considered, my two previous trips covered 0.001% of stuff to do in Tokyo. This time, I want to see the NHK Studio Park experience. Heck they might be taping a show at that time.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:31 am Post subject:
dochira wrote:
All things considered, my two previous trips covered 0.001% of stuff to do in Tokyo. This time, I want to see the NHK Studio Park experience. Heck they might be taping a show at that time.
Going back to the story, that'll make it faster than flying a plane. Could you imagine if SF and LA were only 1 hour apart? (Yes I know that Southwest does it, but with all the airport security and stuff, it's more like 2.5 hours at least).
will be a grandiose, modern travel experience bro! something that japanese are used to well before other nations experience it within their own borders
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 3:46 am Post subject:
this is too Japanese, too hilarious, and too dayem weird.
Train Cafe takes hands-on approach in fight against molesting
Groping remains a painful fact of life for Japan's female train commuters, even with most cities now having Women Only carriages to combat the heinous issue, but molesting addiction has recently started attracting headlines, according to Weekly Playboy (10/9).
Celebrity economist Kazuhide Uekusa's arrest last month for groping -- his third sex charge in eight years -- has thrown the spotlight on the scores of train molesters who simply cannot help themselves.
Train Cafe, an adult's club in the basement of a seedy building in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district, claims to be combating the crime of molestation by getting chikan, or gropers, off the streets.
Train Cafe is a members' only club and is staffed by young women dressed in school uniforms or aprons. Membership costs 5,000 yen and there is a 2,000 yen payment for a cup of tea levied with each visit. A subsequent payment of 3,600 yen for 20 minutes permits members to partake of Train Cafe's services.
Those services are carried out in a room refurbished so that it looks exactly like the inside of a carriage on the Yamanote Line, the train that loops the central Tokyo area. Young women stand at strategic points in the carriage and patrons are permitted to fondle them in whatever way they please. An extra payment of 5,000 yen gives patrons the option of selecting the woman they want to ride with for a 15-minute period.
Male customers, of who the club says there are 4,000, are not allowed to ejaculate in the establishment.
Train Cafe members are offered a virtual reality trip on the Yamanote Line.
"During the 20 minute session, the trip takes you from Ikebukuro to Meguro (about one-third of the Yamanote Line's 60-minute complete loop). With each stop, the doors of the carriage open and the girls get on and off the train. We use actual recordings of the conductors' announcements and LCD screens outside the window display actual footage of the trip along the Yamanote Line," Train Cafe's operator tells Weekly Playboy. "We cannot be beaten when it comes to reality."
Train Cafe's operator tells the weekly that the club's membership is largely based on men in the early to mid-40s. He adds that many customers enter the establishment saying that they had just ridden trains and been driven almost mad by temptation, but made it to the club before tackling an innocent woman commuter.
"We have a crime reducing effect," the operator says.
Far from feeling demeaned, women working at the club say they enjoy it.
"I loath real chikan. But if I'm attacked by one, I'm too scared to do anything and just shut up. I really, really hate it," 20-year-old Rin tells the weekly. "But here, all the customers are members. You know you're going to be felt up and it's a good place to make friends, so I enjoy it." (By Ryann Connell)
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 4:27 am Post subject:
hepcat05 wrote:
WTF? Does the The Onion have an office in Tokyo now?
I've heard about the separate train cars for women before, but this seems a little over the top, even for Japan.
Although this story might seem ficitious it is not.....when one becomes more intimately aware of Japan's more extreme fetishes....you come to understand that such a story is far from surprising. Having studied Japan academically and personally (through pop culture), and having visited, such an arrangement doesn't surprise me in the least.
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