Saturday, June 18, 2005 8:02 AM
Snake stops Shinkansen
Japanese trains are generally the most reliable in the world. Usually the only thing which causes them to be late - unscheduled stops in the basements of apartment buildings excepted - are natural causes such as earthquakes, typhoons and snakes.
On June 15, 2005, the Tohoku Shinkansen line running from Tokyo to Hachinohe in northen Japan suffered a sudden loss of power to the overhead catenary between Ōmiya and Utsonomiya. Power was restored in around fifteen minutes, but one train just outside Oyama Station was unable to move.
On further investigation the charred body of a 30cm long, 1.5cm thick snake (known in Japan as shimahebi, Elaphe quadrivirgat), was found in the pantograph. It is thought the presence of this snake caused a short-circuit, resulting in an automatic shutdown of electric power.
Quite what the snake was doing in the pantograph and how it got there in the first place is not entirely clear. However, this is not the first time a snake has stopped a Shinkansen: on May 2, a snake (species unknown, this one around 1 metre long) wound itself up a power-mast at an electricity relay station, causing a short circuit and delays of up to 60 minutes.
