Japan earthquake 2011 Mar 11

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/11 ... kes-japan/

A passenger train with an unknown number of people aboard was unaccounted for Friday, Kyodo News reported. The East Japan Railway Co. train was running near Nobiru Station on the Senseki Line connecting Sendai to Ishinomaki when a massive quake hit, triggering a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami, according to the station.

The BBC has mentioned four trains being missing. We shall see, as time passes.

I was having trouble grasping the idea that one train could be missing. There must be untold numbers of people who went outside to seek safety from the earthquake whom the tsunami might also have swept away if the waves were big enough to have made trains disappear.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
2 mins ago

The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml

Saturday, Mar 12 2011 3PM
Rail operators lost contact with four trains running on coastal lines on Friday and still had not found them by this morning.
East Japan Railway Co. said it did not know how many people were aboard the trains.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

had a link to a Japanese video of flooded freight and passenger trains.

could not find video but still in utter shock the magnitude of this force to move trains to the point they are missing!

all 4 trains have been found in last few days, some twisted and bend in piles of debris.
It was reported every one got out.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... LL0o1Z&t=1

http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_imag ... 150416.jpg

As one might expect there is considerable disruption to train service in the area of the earhquake and tsunami. From IRJ:

"Today [12 march] JR East discovered that the Tohoku Shinkansen has been damaged along the Sendai - Morioka section. Damage to the Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen cannot be confirmed yet as road access is not possible. The Senseki, Kesenuma, Yamada, and Ofunato conventional lines have also been seriously damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and four trains are missing. The extent of damage to the rail network in northeastern Japan is uncertain at present. "

A later update from Monday 14 March: ''JR East plans to reopen the southern 158km section of the Tohoku Shinkansen tomorrow (Tuesday) between Tokyo and Nasu-Shiobara."

Link to the article: http://www.railjournal.com/newsflash/ja ... unami.html

There are also reported cuts to services in several areas due to the rolling power blackouts. The country has lost about 25% of its generating capacity. Hampering this is the fact that the western and eastern parts of Japan use a different frequency (60hz vs. 50 hz) so power cannot be easily transferred from west grid to east grid.

Jon

So all 4 trains found, no fatalities and ....no bullet train involved?

Has Odakyu or Tokyo Metro been affected?

Sendai Airport has a single track line with overhead catenary to a 2 track terminal, apparently a branch of a main line railroad. On Google Earth, it shows up after 2003 and before 2008. Youtube movies show that the terminal was above water, but the part under the runway apron was flooded.

Moreover, from the pictures, the rail line to the airport elevates once on railroad property (the train station is 2nd floor, level with the airport terminal; there is parking underneath).

Presumably, the part of the rail line on the ground was inundated like everything else.

No word on what happened to the rolling stock that ran between the city's train station, and the airport station on that isolated piece of shortline.

Well, according to JR East, the lines between Morioka and Tokyo are still shut down, or operating, in segments, on a modified basis...

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/

http://traininfo.jreast.co.jp/train_info/e/tohoku.aspx


Those are the official words, thus far. Not sure how work is going in restoring service (at least, I haven't stumbled upon any news regarding the restoration of service as of yet... I'll keep digging, though).

Some lines have been reopened, the Shinkansen should still be like this (red=closed, green=working with a special timetable):

litz wrote:Moreover, from the pictures, the rail line to the airport elevates once on railroad property (the train station is 2nd floor, level with the airport terminal; there is parking underneath).

Presumably, the part of the rail line on the ground was inundated like everything else.

No word on what happened to the rolling stock that ran between the city's train station, and the airport station on that isolated piece of shortline.

Further review of video of the flooding of the Sendai Airport shows a train parked in the station ... so one train was safe ...

The airport reopened 4/13/11. I used "Sendai airport train" in a search engine for lots more information.