West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) has decided to review a practice in its job training in which its employees sit close to a Shinkansen bullet train that is running at a speed of up to 300 kph in a tunnel on the Sanyo Shinkansen line to experience its wind pressure.
A labor union has requested that the practice be ended, insisting it is "too dangerous." JR West said it would change the training method and have them watch through a fence along the railway outside the tunnel instead from November.
According to JR West, the training had been conducted since February 2016 on employees who are in charge of inspecting cars. In the training, the employees crouched down at working passages of about 1-meter-wide and 1-meter-deep, which are located between the inbound and outbound lines, in order to experience the wind pressure, sounds and vibrations of Shinkansen trains passing through. A total of 28 such practices were held as of the end of September, with about 230 employees participating in total.
The practice was prompted in August 2015 by an accident in which a metal cover fell off from a Shinkansen train when it was traveling in a tunnel in Fukuoka Prefecture. The accident, which injured one passenger, apparently occurred due mainly to a loosened bolt that should have secured the cover.
JR West has emphasized the significance of the training by saying: "Through this method, employees can feel a sense of the impact when parts fall off, while feeling the wind pressure. In that sense, it's effective for learning the importance of safety and job responsibility."
However, the West Japan Railway Workers Union, which has about 700 members, has received reports from some participants saying, "What effect does it have by making us being scared?"
In response, the union has asked JR West since May last year to stop the training.
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