You can only trust half of what this Japan Railways display board is telling you.
In contrast to its consistent record of calm orderliness, there’s been a sudden spike in chaos in the Tokyo rail system. Over the past few days, passengers have spotted lazy anthropomorphic eggs, alien superheroes, and even a butt-naked man in and about the stations.
But while those were all unusual sights, a bigger problem came last Sunday evening when service was temporarily suspended on the Yamanote Line, the rail loop that encircles Tokyo’s city center. It wasn’t just Tokyoites who were being inconvenienced at the time, either, as the multi-segmented Togane Line, found east of the capital in Chiba Prefecture, was simultaneously shut down.
Still, with such a sprawling network of trains and tracks to take care of, it’s inevitable that sometimes these sorts of problems are going to occur. Japan Railways, which operates both the Yamanote and Togane Lines, quickly notified passengers of the delays and stoppages, both with intercom announcements and video displays. However, Japanese Twitter user @Section_Rapid couldn’t help but notice something ironic in the map highlighting the affected areas (with the Yamanote Line shown in red and the Togane in orange).
“It’s not OK at all!” laughed @Section_Rapid. “It’s totally NG!” he went on, using the Japanese abbreviation for “no good.”
That said, it wasn’t too terribly long until both lines were running again, and there were no reports of mass strandings, so maybe the hidden message here was “Don’t worry, it’s going to be OK. We’ll get you home eventually.”
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Source: Jin, Twitter/@Section_Rapid