Japan Rail fails
On my way home tonight, there was what is known in JR Excuse-ese as “signal trouble”. This generally means that a light bulb burned out in a train traffic light, and they’re waiting for a replacement.
In my train’s case, that meant that the train was stranded in the station for a good solid half an hour. And while I was waiting for my train—the next train—to come, I came to a horrible realization.
A guy with flags would make a great replacement for a burned-out traffic light. And I haven’t the foggiest idea why this has never occurred to Japan Rail, because in Japan, labor-intensive manual solutions to easily-automatable problems happen all the damn time.
I eventually ended up taking a taxi home (I happened to get the most law-abiding taxi driver I’ve ever had—he only hit double the speed limit once, where most taxi drivers cheerfully hit triple the speed limit; he signaled at least 75% of his turns and lane changes, and even almost came to a halt at a stop sign) because there was no sign in the immediate future of a proper train home.
Why aren’t there multiple bulbs? Putting 2 bulbs in parallel behind the same glass would solve this problem. Or if that’s not too practical then triple signals with majority decision (2 bulbs show green, 1 off… go!).
Single bulb failure sounds like a design failure, to me.