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-   -   Japan bullet train driver leaves cockpit for toilet break (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commercial-vehicles/237127-japan-bullet-train-driver-leaves-cockpit-toilet-break.html)

A Japanese train driver faces possible punishment after he left the cockpit of a speeding bullet train for several minutes to go to the toilet. He had asked a conductor, who did not have a driver's licence, to man the train which was travelling at 150km/h (93mph), according to local media. The Hikari 633 was carrying 160 passengers at the time. The incident reportedly did not affect the journey. The railway company has reported it to authorities and apologised.

The incident took place on the Tokaido Shinkansen railway line.

I don’t know if this would have made news anywhere else, except Japan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57196765

This is a bigger reason IMO for making it to the news.

While the normal trend is "cover up the mistake", these Japs simply go and tell authorities "Oh sir, I tell you, my driver took a toilet break, and we are sorry about it".

No wonder, their authorities and regulators must feel as much valuable as is the 'S' in our 4x2 compact SUVs'.

Where does this happen? Even governments also cover their mistakes, hide the data, manipulate statements - and these men simply put it forward. No wonder they recovered so well after the WW2 devastation!

Don't know which is worse:
Loco pilots keep it bottled up!
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities...cle6811469.ece

Do you want your Shatabdi Express (doing 130 km/hr) driven by a 'bottled up' driver? I believe only the latest locomotives like the WAG-12 & WDG-4G have toilets. Can the railfans comment?

The authorities found out as the Train got late by One minute.

The driver might have got away with his unscheduled toilet break except for the fact that the train was subsequently one minute late, which prompted an investigation in a country famous for punctuality.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theg...o-go-to-toilet

Are we saying that in such a high tech train, there is no auto pilot mode even for 5 mins to give a bio break to the pilot?

I can not believe this. Such a train is usually designed for long distances to cover 10-15 hours journey. And in order to cover such long distances, either there has to be a backup driver or the train should be enabled with auto pilot mode at least for 5-10 mins and should be capable enough to manage for temp period.

Not sure if I am missing something

I am no expert on trains, but to the best of my knowledge every train always has a dead man button. That needs to be depressed all the time. Very often there are two, one to put a hand on, one to put a foot on. So the driver can alternate. But as soon as they are released the train will do an emergency stop!

It is a simple, yet very effective, fail safe mechanism for a driver becoming unwell. If the driver becomes unwell, his/her hand/foot will slip of the dead man button, or simply not push down enough.

It also ensures there is always at the controls and actively pushing on the dead man button. On modern trains the dead man button is replaced by a so called dead man vigilance device. Essentially the same, but the engineer can step away from it for a defined, short period of time. Often that time is speed dependent, the faster, the shorted. Some systems are more elaborate and can monitor engineer activity. E.g. as long as he/she touches something, a switch or a screen, every so often, the system assumes the driver is ok.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead-m...gilance_device

Next, there are systems that can control the train as well, e.g. if it goes through a red light, the train will be brought to a stop as well, independent of the dead man button. So it can override.

I am sure the Bullet will have similar system, if not more elaborate incorporated. We have some train experts on the forum, would be good to hear some more details on these systems.

You don’t want a train, or a plane for that matter, travelling on autopilot for any length of time. It always needs permanent supervision!!

Jeroen

I am sure there is a system to deal with such bodily functions.

From what I recall the Conductor is posted at the tail end of the train, doing his signaling and other conductor business. So he left the post to traverse the length of the train to assist the Driver in discharging the urgent business?

Also, these guys need to periodically "point and call" as per SOP. If such a Pointing/Calling event were to occur when the Driver was away from station, then that would seem to be a breach of the SOP.

The Shinkansen has an excellent safety record.

I cant imagine an inquiry happening elsewhere for a train being late by just 'one minute' :uncontrol.

Is the investigation in place because this was not reported to the authorities and for being covered up? I do feel he should have stopped the train while attending nature's call rather than hand over controls to someone not used to handling a fast moving train hence endangering lives. Anyways this also shines light on how stressful these jobs can be without having a supporting driver. An ideal scenario would be to have two qualified drivers in case of a medical emergency.

I think there is something more complicated here...

Considering the Japanese are religiously punctual and these trains among the cutting edge rolling stock, a P break does not seem to be something they would not have thought of.

The Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Osaka is not operated the whole stretch by one driver. The train stops at a few stations, the main ones being Yokohama, Nagoya and Kyoto. The train in the news is a Hikari express, which makes more frequent stops along the way. Drivers are changed along the way.

The Bullet trains are more or less autonomous. They have a driver and a conductor for passenger operations and for monitoring the systems.

The driver's toilet break became newsworthy since he did not follow protocol. He left the cabin and let the conductor sit instead. That is a breach of protocol.

Usually, if the call to nature is urgent, drivers are asked to call the next station to get a backup driver. There is a whole guidebook in the Shinkansen cab that catalogues all emergency situations, including pee / poo breaks.

Richard Hammond and a few other TV presenters did a fantastic show on the Shinkansen operations. Also if you go to Japan, the Nagoya Shinkansen museum covers all this in very intricate detail.

https://museum.jr-central.co.jp/en/

As per Japanese media, the driver was too embarrassed to admit that he needed a toilet break. Japan is a fun country, but the pressure to conform to standards and the rigidity of society means, people often have to adhere to the rules and stop to think outside the box.

Indian Railways - recently introduced the toilets in the WAG12 and WDG/P4 series. Otherwise, in most cases, the LP/ALP would hold it till the next destination, stoppage for crossing, minor stations (where the ALP/LP could use a red flag to indicate stopping and the SM would inform the previous station/ next station of halt). etc or in extreme cases stop the train, do their business, and restart the journey. This would work when there was 'section' clearance used for track management. The journey would at the most be delayed by a minute or two which in most cases is already factored into the system.
Now with line doubling most of these 'crossing' halts are a thing of the past and with automatic signalling etc 'unscheduled stopping' is difficult (not impossible - there are still sometimes that a loco-failure, technical issue etc can lead to unplanned stoppage).
Also there is a 'dead man' switch that has to be pressed after a certain time interval - there are two interconnected sets on the WDX4 series so either the LP or ALP can press it. Also signal calling has been introduced in IR as well

As for the bullet trains - they are automated, however per the Japanese rail code - every signal has to be called out (Poka Yoke if I remember correctly). There is also a dead man foot/hand switch (depends upon the type of train set). Maybe he really had an emergency (morning sushi lead to su-shi stupid: ) ...and knew that that particular section had no 'warnings' so he took the chance - but being Japanese ensured that he logged it and reported.

I know of many truck drivers in India who keeps brick on top of accelerator pedal so that there is no need to use one's foot for providing the required acceleration once the vehicle started to move or or is on a highway. People would have found and used such ingenious ways to work around such restrictions. Yeah, but, India is a different country

I don't know but why do we have this innate urge to degrade anything that we Indians do? Sorry if it sounds rude and not picking on you in specific, but making a general statement here.

The Dead Man Switch (called Alerter in IR) has to be reset after a certain cycle. In the older WDX 2's and 3's if there is no movement of notch lever (throttle), brake, sander operation, horn switch pressed, then the alerter will automatically activate sound a warning (3 short blasts) horn and start the application of brakes while reducing engine throttle. To override this the LP/ALP has to press a button called Alert Reset - every 60 seconds or less. If the Alert Reset is pressed continuously, then engine goes into emergency mode (honk, brake, slowdown). The same applies to 'all' electric engines on IR. The newer WDX4 type engines use a microcontroller-based failsafe that monitors items such as brake line pressure, notch controller, etc. The Alert Reset is 'speed/ gradient' based and there is a light that comes on the panel when it has to be pressed within 10 seconds of the light coming on.

Only the rare few WDG-5's have toilets no info about the WAG-12.

Rahul

Any system can be by-passed, abused. On the old deadman systems on train, the engineer could simply hang his/her bag on the handle. That would keep it down. And yes, accidents have happened due to this practice, just like accidents will have happened due to drivers putting a brick on the accelerator pedal. Not just in India.

There is just no excuse for such behaviour and such irresponsible behaviour towards safety.

Jeroen