Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Sicilia e Giappone, pianeti differenti...

Premetto che non intendo speculare sulle disgrazie altrui,
nè fare della fin troppo facile ironia sul'italianità ma,
dopo avere visto al telegiornale un servizio sull'incidente
ferroviario accaduto in Sicilia nel quale un reporter
dimostra che dadi e bulloni delle giunzioni tra binari sono
allentati e rimuovibili a mani nude senza attrezzi,
non posso trattenermi dal consigliare agli italiani di leggere
i tre articoli che riporto di seguito, tratti dal site
della BBC, autentiche cronache da un altro pianeta,
nella speranza che serva loro a capire quanto cammino hanno
ancora da compiere lungo la strada dell'evoluzione.
Basti dire che in quasi quaranta anni i treni veloci
giapponesi Shinkansen non hanno mai avuto incidenti.
Come facciano la società FF.SS e Trenitalia a dichiararsi
parte offesa lo sanno solo gli italiani.
Ma questo e' uno dei prodotti del liberismo: tante
società a catena che scaricano la responsabilità sulle
società sub-appaltatrici, così che l'accertamento della
responsabilità della mancata manutenzione richiederà
decenni di atti dovuti della magistratura e processi a
carico del già saturo e marciscente apparato giudiziario
italiano. Le vittime non hanno fretta...
I Giapponesi attribuiscono una notevole importanza al sistema
dei trasporti perchè sono il motore di ogni paese civile,
e la stazione ferroviaria è diventata anche,
per così dire, un elemento dell'identita' culturale
del Giapponese medio (comparendo nella letteratura,
nei movies, e persino negli...adventure/rpg games :-) )
e parte integrante della sua quotidianità, tanto che la
vicinanza tra abitazione e stazione ferroviaria è divenuta
un indicatore sociale di benessere.
Impossible ogni confronto con la situazione italiana,
dove i trasporti pubblici quasi inesistenti hanno
provocato la completa saturazione del sistema stradale
da parte di una eccessiva quantità di veicoli privati.
Personalmente, subisco la carenza dei trasporti italiani
da decenni: quando frequentavo le superiori e l'università,
abitavo in un paesino agricolo e dovevo raggiungere
la citta' distante circa trenta chilometri con
lentissimi treni locali, ora abito in una pseudocittà (bologna)
e lavoro in un'area industriale fuori città distante solo 19
miserabili chilometri, ma malservita dagli autobus extraurbani.
Leggete, italiani e trinacriani, leggete...
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news.bbc.co.uk
 
World: From Our Own Correspondent  
 
Saturday, 15 June, 2002, 11:44 GMT 12:44 UK 
Riding the rails Japanese style
 
[[Photo] The bullet train - symbol of Japan's economic progress]
 
By Juliet Hindell 
In Japan  
 
The white arrow, the blue sky, the thunder bird, the salt breeze, 
the sunrise express, and the super view dancing girl. The names of 
just some of Japan's express trains are unashamedly romantic and 
make it easy for me to admit that I have become a trainspotter in 
Japan. 
I don't stand on the end of platforms with my telephoto lens and 
notebook, but collecting as many different train rides as possible 
has become an obsession. For me, travelling by train in Japan is a 
window onto the soul of this country. 
[[Box] Japan's train bentos are neatly packed boxes of local 
delicacies and the source of a distinct breed of Japanese 
trainspotter]
 
If you ask someone in Japan where they live, they're likely to 
reply with the train line that takes them there. Everyone travels by 
train and trains go nearly everywhere. As such, they are the social 
glue of the country. 
Commuters have their train passes paid for by their companies. The 
distance you live from the station is usually a good indication of 
your wealth - the nearer, the richer. 
Premium 
Train lines are the ultimate political paybacks, new bullet train 
lines to the back of beyond are the classic way to reward faithful 
supporters and trains play a central role in some of Japan's most 
popular literature and films. 
My trainspotting all started with the Tobu line, a small private 
railway which connects Asakusa, Tokyo's bustling down town district, 
with points directly north. 
[[Photo] The new-generation bullet trains were built with customer 
comfort in mind]
 
This is the line that took me to my first home in Japan. It's not a 
fast or a particularly essential line - it goes to small towns with 
small industries - but there's nevertheless a choice of a 
comfortable express, a semi-express and a stopping train. 
The difference between the fastest and slowest is just 25 minutes, 
but it costs more than double the price for the express ticket. In 
this small, crowded nation, breathing space and a guaranteed seat 
are charged at a premium. 
Romance 
The Tobu line's name for such luxury is the romance car, because it 
ends its journey at a distant hot spring resort - the site of torrid 
assignations. 
The romance is perhaps fostered by the mushroom-coloured velvet 
pairs of seats which are so narrow that you have to become cosy with 
your travelling companions. 
[[Box] Of course, all these trains are on time - the object of envy 
the world over ]
 
But it also has a retro air - the guards are dressed in 
distinctive orange-brown uniforms the colour of maple and walnut 
pudding. 
The scenery outside the window is first of the unfashionable 
tightly packed northern suburbs and then the searingly green rice 
fields and ramshackle farmhouses of Japan's inaka or countryside. 
It's always either freezing or boiling on this train. 
"It's a country train," says my friend Take, who lives halfway down 
the line. "They like to show they have air-conditioning that works." 
Inflexibility 
On the stopping train, the automatic doors let in the swooning heat 
of summer, and in winter the icy winds straight from Siberia. 
There are hundreds of similar lines crisscrossing Japan, each with 
its own character, and of course its own lunchbox or bento. 
Japan's train bentos are neatly packed boxes of local delicacies 
and the source of a distinct breed of Japanese trainspotter - the 
lunchbox pilgrim who travels the country just to try a certain train 
line's bento. 
There is an unwritten rule of train travel in Japan - if you are on 
an express train you have to start eating as soon as the train 
departs. Drinking beer is also mandatory - even if it's early in the 
morning. 
[[Box] One station manager famously committed suicide last year 
because his trains were late]
 
Of course, all these trains are on time - the object of envy the 
world over. But while I relish that reliability, I also see it as a 
feature of Japan's rigid inflexibility . There's no holding a train 
to let a struggling mother with two small children jump on, and 
woe-betide the guard that lets a train miss its departure time by a 
nano-second. 
One station manager famously committed suicide last year because 
his trains were late. Delays of a few minutes on the famous bullet 
trains are the subject of national news bulletins - only 
earthquakes, typhoons and blizzards are seen as reasonable excuses 
for lateness. 
Economic progress 
Bullet trains, by the way, are not called that in Japanese. They 
are known as the Shinkansen, the direct translation of which is the 
rather more prosaic - new, high-speed train. 
Riding the shinkansen, you can feel Japan's economic progress since 
World War II in the train's the speed and efficiency. But you can 
also feel the resistance to change which ties this country down when 
you can't use a credit card to buy a ticket costing hundreds of 
pounds - the train company accepts only cash or its own credit card. 
But nothing can take away from the sheer pleasure of gliding along 
in a green car as the first-class section of the shinkansen and 
seeing the white-gloved guard bow to the train as it leaves the 
station exactly on schedule. 
The passengers lean back on their starched antimacassars. Beer cans 
are popped open and you can hear a rustling as bento boxes are 
neatly unwrapped in unison. 
© MMII
 
© BBC
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news.bbc.co.uk
World: Asia-Pacific
 
Thursday, 4 July, 2002, 07:38 GMT 08:38 UK 
The cost of catching up
 
[[Photo] The newest bullet trains travel at 285kph]
 
By Chris Summers 
BBC News Online  
 
One of the memories most British tourists returning from Japan 
cherish is their experience of riding the Shinkansen, or bullet 
train. 
No doubt they will come back to the UK and wonder why our railways 
cannot be like the Japanese ones. 
The Shinkansen have not had a single fatal accident in 38 years and 
carry millions of passengers every day. 
[[Box] Journey times  
London-Inverness (914km): eight hours 30 mins 
Tokyo-Hakata (1,174km): five hours 
London-Manchester (313km): three hours 
Tokyo-Niigata (333km): two hours]
But it has not come cheap and Japan's ultra-modern railways have 
landed it with a historic debt of 28,000bn yen (£153bn). 
That is roughly equivalent to 200,000 yen (£1,089) for every 
Japanese man, woman and child. 
It is a sum which dwarfs the $4bn (£2.6bn) which hangs around the 
neck of the beleaguered Amtrak, the giant US rail company which was 
set up as a non-profit corporation in 1971. 
Most of the Shinkansen lines were built with the help of huge 
loans. 
By the 1970s the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) 
was crippled with debt. 
In 1987 it had reached 25,000bn yen. 
Enough was enough and the Japanese Government decided to privatise 
the railways. 
Several different companies were formed and a special fund was set 
up through which the firms operating the most profitable routes (eg 
the Tokyo commuter lines and the Shinkansens) subsidised those 
operating the less profitable, but socially important routes. 
[[Box] Japanese railway history
Jun 1949: Japanese National Railways (JNR) formed. General 
MacArthur bans strikes. 
1963: Automatic stoppers introduced after two accidents which 
killed 321 people 
1964: First bullet train line opened, part financed by World Bank 
1987: JNR privatised after losses reach 25,000bn yen 
2002: Debt now 28,000bn yen (£153bn)  ]
Privatisation has been generally considered a success, unlike in 
the UK, where British Rail was replaced by Railtrack and numerous 
franchises in the mid-1990s. 
Most of the privatised companies have made operating profits. 
The big difference is the way Britain and Japan went about 
privatisation. 
In the UK the infrastructure was split off under a company called 
Railtrack who maintained the stations, track and signals for a 
myriad of companies who ran the train franchises. 
But in Japan they had a system of "vertical integration" which 
meant that the network was broken up geographically with train 
operators responsible for the trains, the tracks, the stations and 
the signals in their own areas. 
Service comes first 
Dr Ryo Takagi, a transport research fellow at Birmingham 
University, said: "That one decision is the reason for success in 
terms of providing good service to passengers." 
He said the confusion over the points at Potters Bar would not have 
happened in Japan. 
"They have subcontractors too but the final responsibility is kept 
within the operating companies," said Dr Takagi. 
Mike Knutton, a senior editorial consultant with the International 
Railway Journal, said privatisation the British way was "a recipe 
for disaster". 
[[Photo] A shinkansen train arrives in Niigata station]
 
"Margaret Thatcher thought rail privatisation was too difficult but 
John Major thought he could do it. 
"But he did it at a time when they probably knew they were going to 
lose the next election. It was rushed through and it was botched." 
Mr Knutton said: "The Japanese kept the crucial link between the 
wheel and the track." 
But despite the collapse of Railtrack and the succession of rail 
disasters in recent years, the new Transport Secretary Alistair 
Darling has insisted he will press on with the current system, all 
be it replacing Railtrack with a non-profit body called Network 
Rail. 
At a meeting of the Railway Forum earlier this week he was asked by 
Brian Souter, chairman of the Stagecoach train and bus company, why 
he was persisting with it. 
Mr Darling said switching to vertical integration would take too 
long and would not deliver the rapid improvements in safety and 
performance which were needed. 
[[Photo] Clean and modern: Kagoshima station ]
 
Dr Takagi said Britain needs to adopt Japanese attitudes to safety. 
"Japan's safety record is very high and that is partly because of 
the Japanese culture. 
"Safety is the priority no matter what it costs, whereas in Britain 
we have decided not to go ahead with certain safety features because 
they will decrease capacity or cost too much." 
Mr Knutton said the Japanese railway industry used to have a 
saying: "We will never be satisfied with 99.99% safety." 
He said: "The trains are organised in such a way that the sort of 
conflicting movements that occurred in the Paddington crash could 
not happen there. They are prepared to pay for safety we are not." 
In his speech to the Railway Forum Mr Darling said: "The railways 
have been through a difficult time. The legacy of years of under 
investment are very apparent." 
[[Box] We are providing the funding to put right decades of 
under-investment. But we will not write blank cheques.
 Alistair Darling
 Transport Secretary  ]
But he said things were changing and he pointed to the fact that 
4,000 new carriages were on order or had been delivered, freight and 
passenger numbers had risen in the last five years and the first new 
major railway for 100 years (the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) was on 
time and on budget. 
Mr Darling said the setting up of Network Rail - a non-profit 
corporation which will replace Railtrack - was a crucial step 
forward. 
'No blank cheques' 
He also referred to the Strategic Rail Authority's 10 Year Plan and 
said: "We are providing the funding to put right decades of 
under-investment. 
[[Photo] Light years behind...slam door carriages on the London to 
Brighton line]
 
"But we will not write blank cheques." 
Strategic Rail Authority spokesman Paul Latham told BBC News Online 
they had begun a feasibility study which was looking into the 
possibility of a Shinkansen-style high speed rail link between 
London and the North of England. 
He said this could be a completely new line with trains running at 
more than 240kph but would not be operational until 2015 at the 
earliest. 
© MMII
© BBC
 
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news.bbc.co.uk
 
World: Asia-Pacific
Thursday, 4 July, 2002, 07:48 GMT 08:48 UK 
Travelling on a bullet
 
[[Photo] A Shinkansen speeds through western Japan ©JNTO]
(NdV: il muso assomiglia a quello di un jet supersonico...)
 
By Chris Summers 
BBC News Online  
 
Imagine landing at Heathrow on a Saturday morning and having a 
ticket for a football match at Old Trafford in the afternoon. 
How confident would you be of getting there in time? 
But then the Joetsu Shinkansen line is not Virgin Trains' West 
Coast Main Line and the Narita Express is not the Piccadilly Line. 
[[Box] UK rail incidents in June 2002  
3 June: Fire on ScotRail train in Perthshire 
4 June: Eight injured in derailment near Londonderry 
11 June: Train carrying nuclear flask hits lorry at Dungeness, Kent 
17 June: Timber train derailed in the Scottish Borders, causing 
delays on West Coast Main Line. 
24 June: Trains from Birmingham to Bristol stopped after another 
freight train derailed. 
24 June: Overhead power line failure causes huge delays between 
London and Glasgow ]
After passing through customs at Narita Airport and picking up my 
suitcase, I got on to a slow, stopping train at about 10.30am and 
arrived in Tokyo about 50 minutes later. 
I walked through the concourse and straight on to a double-decker 
Shinkansen train. Two hours later I was getting off at Niigata. 
After dumping my suitcase at my hotel I caught a shuttle bus to the 
Big Swan Stadium in plenty of time for kick-off. 
On my travels by train throughout Japan I soon realised that I 
could have complete faith in the timetable. 
Japanese trains run to pinpoint timing. 
During the two weeks I was there I never once saw a train leave 
late or be cancelled. 
[[Box] Japan rail incidents in June 2002
None]
If the timetable said the train to Hiroshima was leaving at 10.14 
then it left at exactly 10.14. If not, the PA would broadcast a 
profuse apology for the two-minute delay. 
Although I would not have understood it, there was no need for the 
station announcers to mumble: "The 9.30 train from Kobe has been 
cancelled due to a shortage of drivers" or "The 3.45 train from 
Kagoshima is running 20 minutes late due to leaves on the line." 
[[Photo] Commuters board a Shinkansen at Tokyo station]
 
Mike Knutton, a senior editorial consultant with the International 
Railway Journal, said: "Of course they are fortunate to have a very 
disciplined and compliant public. 
"The Japanese do not spray graffiti on station walls or put their 
feet on the seats and they queue up where they are supposed to on 
the platforms." 
There are other differences which the British traveller notices. 
Many train carriages are double-deckers, which allows for twice as 
many passengers to travel in comfort. 
Shinkansen drivers wear neat grey uniforms more redolent of airline 
pilots than the average scruffy British train driver. 
Food on board Japanese trains is an absolute joy. 
First class food 
On most long-distance British trains the passenger has to stagger 
through several carriages before finding a long queue at the front 
of which they are offered a limited range of wilted, over-priced and 
barely edible fare. 
In Japan you simply sit in your seat and wait for the neatly 
dressed, polite and friendly staff to pass through your carriage, 
which they do every 20 minutes or so. 
On entering they bow and say: "Ohayo Gozai-mas! (good morning)" 
before pushing their trolley of goodies down the carriage. 
Among the range of food on offer is the ekiben, a packed lunch with 
a difference. 
[[Photo] Ekibens (lunch boxes) are also on sale on platforms]
 
Costing about £4 and packed in beautiful decorated box, mine was a 
delicious selection of riceballs, sushi, noodles, tofu snacks and 
other Japanese delicacies. 
Japanese rail fares are similar to the price of a British train 
ticket. 
But the difference, as Mr Knutton points out, is that the Japanese 
one is value for money. 
"The Japanese do not mind paying high fares when they receive a 
service which is clean, efficient, punctual and above all safe." 
© MMII
© BBC
--

 Leggete, italiani e trinacriani, leggete...
E tu leggiti questo, pirletto:
Editorial: Poor inspections led to Japan tunnel disaster
TOKYO (CNN) -- Japan's neglectful road inspections are to blame for the
nation's worst tunnel accident in which 20 people died, Japanese
newspapers said Sunday.
"We are always eager to build new roads and railways, but how seriously
are we spending our time and money to inspect and repair what we built?"
the Nihon Keizan Shimbun questioned in an editorial.
Hokkaido police will look into the possibility of professional
negligence, Kyodo News said Sunday. Kyodo News revealed earlier in the
week that a similar boulder had fallen from a mountainside in the area
18 months ago. The report suggests that local authorities ignored
warning signs of rock instability in the area.
On Saturday, one week after a massive rock crushed the tunnel in
northern Japan, 50 soldiers retrieved the badly crushed wreckage of a
commuter bus in which the driver and 18 passengers were found. Another
body was retrieved from a car.
According to the Construction Ministry, there are 74,000 other Japanese
sites where similar disasters could occur.
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG

 ora abito in una pseudocittà (bologna)
Una delle città piu vivibili al mondo.
Nonostante la grande civiltà e avanguardia nel sistema dei trasporti, in Giappone
c'è uno dei tassi di suicidio piu alti del mondo, come mai?
I giovani giapponesi rinnegano le proprie tradizioni e sognano di essere occidentali,
come mai?

Ma se tu fossi giallo, brutto, represso sessualmente, costretto a
mangiare pesce crudo e riso sempre, convinto che è giusto salire su un
aereo ed immolarsi per la gloria dell'imperatore, destinato a suicidarsi
se fai una cappella grossa, circondato dalle più brutte fighe del mondo,
ed abitassi in un formicaio, dimmi, cosa faresti?
Penso che ti suicideresti anche tu.
Certo, in modo pulito, non buttandoti sotto ad un treno, potresti
causare insopportabili ritardi.
E questo mentecatto dice che Bologna è una pseudocittà, rabbia,
desolazione, incazzatura!
La haine
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