The Train Crash That Exposed Japan’s Toxic Work Culture

A train in Japan was 1 minute behind schedule. For Japanese standards, this was more than acceptable. Having hurried too much, the train will now never make its destination.

If you are feeling generous:

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📺 Chapters:

0:00 Intro
1:04 The Journey leading up to the crash
5:10 The Crash
5:35 The Aftermath
6:48 Investigation of the Train
9:23 Investigation of the Driver
11:18 Conclusion

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🎵 Music:

An album of the songs I wrote for the video can be found here:

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📃Sources & Credits:

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🖥️ Links to my gear: (I get a commission from Amazon if used)

A favorite plugin of mine used in the soundtrack:

You can support me by buying literally anything from these sites after having clicked on one of the links above. It is much appreciated.
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[vitoc]

Japan: "We apologize, the train left 1.5 minutes late."

Philippines: "Be thankful that the train was running this week."

[matteofalduto]

Meanwhile in Italy this morning i was 90 minutes late to work because someone managed to steal some of the copper wires constituting the overhead lines powering the trains... Asking the conductor for explanations he calmly but slightly annoyedly answered "it is what it is..." as to say "What do you expect me to do? To get out and push?"

[QuakeGamerROTMG]

"You have to perform PERFECTLY with less than a single MINUTE of delay for 9 hours straight on 7 hours of sleep"
"Oh I can't believe this led to tragedy, what a freak accident!"

[mickeypopa]

Someone from Japan made a comment on another video how their father or grandfather (can't remember which) once told them "It's better to be 1 minute late than to lose your life in 1 minute". I have a feeling they were subtly referencing this train disaster.

[joecrammond]

hard to believe just being one minute late could cause a driver to panic about the consequences he'll be facing leading to all this

Japan: - Train must be EXACTLY on time.
France : The train will be EXACTLY on time. On its own time, when it decides to arrive, if there's no strike.

[abelsuisse]

That was so interesting. Crazy how different the rail culture is in Switzerland, where the national rail operator always insists that if there's a delay due to infrastructure issues or bad timetabling, the driver must not worry about it and just needs to keep going without compromising safety, even of the delay persists.

[blzze_]

2-minute delay in Japan: disaster, society is devastated

2-minute delay in UK: it's a miracle, people finally on time for once

[oneangryboi]

People like to praise Japan for it's supposive productivity, but don't realize that its people are dying to meet such impossible demands.

[Swcher]

2 seconds late in Japan: world-ending catastrophe
2 hours late in India: better than average

[ellesmerewildwood]

Yes, the driver was at the controls of the train, but the toxic company with the toxic workplace culture was in control of the driver.

[selcatron]

nurse that was my mentor too many years ago at my first ER job would often say "It is better to be late to work than early to heaven"

[Mrmegaminergames]

We got shown a video of this accident when I went through driver training in Australia,
Pretty much got told "screw the timetable, your job is to maintain the saftey of your passengers"

[akusen]

the fact that the first cabin was smashed so badly that first responders didnt recognize it is just wild.

[daveboatman]

First rule of any business, don’t kill the customer.

[crosscolin]

This was my wife's train... luckily for her, that day she didn't want to fight for a place on the express train and took the local train that afternoon.

[nightowldickson]

It's better to arrive late than not arrive at all

[napalmbhoji]

you know shits real when the the time starts with "6:11 am" instead of sweet innocent numbers divisible by 5

[nickd]

The passenger knocking on the driver window to demand an apology announcement for a 1 minute delay is the ultimate Karen that probably contributed to this catastrophe

[malte_hoffmann]

A train isn't even counted as late in the statistics until it is 6 minutes late in Germany.