We could have this, instead we use our money on endless wars and send it to foreign nations (Israel)
Why close it though? In Slovakia we have a few train stops with stop on request. The train only stops there if there’s someone at the stop, or if someone presses a stop button in the train.
Reading some articles. It’s a bit muddled because it’s a viral story from a foreign country. But what I am confident in saying.
Low usage, this station in particular only had 4 trains a day. Three one way, one the other (the service the student took)
Three other stations closed at the same time, on the same line. One of which only had 2 trains stopping.
There is also the way Japanese train routes are run.
Lol the pressure, “are you going to pass or shall we keep the station open one more year?”
That is not a thing in most of the world.
Passing grades? Where is it not a thing?
I believe they refer to forms of education other than the one you took, in which the student, upon failing to meet standards, continues to the next curricular year instead of taking the same year again, and remains at the lower tier of class education. Example, based on alphabetical grades: An F or a U in English Lit does not result in the same English lessons being taught again next year. It just means an F or a U. Leaving school with no grades above a D (or a 3 for modern UK grades) is possible.
Maybe, but it’s such a strange interpretation. It seems obvious that the top comment was referring to the student not passing a grade. Why assume that they are talking about something else where the concept doesn’t apply?
Well obviously “most of the world.” What world are you from not passing grades?
What? I’ve had people in my class who didn’t pass (in Germany).
If only all the “freedom loving” idiots noticed that enabling all members of society to be mobile regardless of physical abilities, place or wealth, is true freedom for a society.
Being enslaved to a metal box on wheels clearly isn’t freedom.
It’s not everywhere but school bus service is fairly prolific in the US, lots of very rural routes that only serve one child/one family, obviously it would be better if we took all public transport more seriously but school busses definitely go way out of the way for students
Imagine if school buses didn’t exist and someone suggested them today. They’d be cursed as fucking commies and and ridiculed.
Yeah I think improving public transport should be #1 priority but capitalism would suffer. I mean we gotta sell shit cars and keep that industry alive.
日本、恋しいなあ。
I miss being there 😔 Came back to the states cuz I missed family and was guilt tripped, and even before rapist convicted felon got to power I was longing to return.
The sentiment is only growing stronger to return to a place that makes sense and feels right. Japan is by no means a perfect place/country (they got bad people who do bad things there) but there was a lotta good that I witnessed just like this every day. Heavy sigh.
From an outsider’s perspective, Japanese culture seems to foster a mutual respect for one another as well as for one’s community and environment.
On the contrary, America seems to idealize treating people with contempt unless there’s something you would want from them. Our society is very transactional and if you have nothing of interest to show for yourself then you have no worth to anybody and deserve no respect.
I know this is all a big generalization of two societies consisting of millions of people and this isn’t to say that everybody behaves the same way across both societies. But when you have a general behavior across a society then it’s no surprise that a significant portion of that society will adapt that behavior.
There is significantly higher pressure to conform to societal norms there, including misogynistic views on a woman’s role and a more stratified social hierarchy - but there’s also a belief that government exists to support society instead of existing to support moneyed interests.
I’m gonna say that your experience is very specific to you.
I have an American friend who lived in Japan growing up (military brat) and who speaks fluent Japanese. She worked several jobs for Japanese firms both in Japan and remotely before she decided to stop making use of this very lucrative skill. Her reasoning:
- The Japanese are workaholics who expect everyone else to be as well. You are expected to always be available and to always give the appearance that you are working even if you literally have nothing to do. If you don’t appear to be living up to this standard, it isn’t uncommon for your boss to publicly shame you in front of your coworkers.
- The Japanese are extremely hierarchical. What the boss says goes, literally no matter what. You should never question or correct your boss, either publicly or privately, regardless of whether or not they are wrong, or if their mistaken assumptions could harm the business. If you do this, you should expect retribution.
- The Japanese are paralyzingly perfectionist. One of her jobs was teaching American businesspeople Japanese. She also tried teaching Japanese businesspeople English, but found it was impossible, because her Japanese students experienced so much anxiety about making any mistakes while speaking English that they refused to try - which resulted in them never learning any English.
- The Japanese are extremely sexist. People in public will openly make sexist remarks about women and/or slut shame them. It is common for Japanese men to refuse to speak to women about anything important and demand to speak to a man instead. And there’s the whole issue with upskirt photos on trains.
- The Japanese are outwardly racist. If you are white, you should expect to be stopped on the street for people who will demand a photo with you. If you are black, expect to openly be accused of being a criminal and a drug addict in casual conversation. If you make Japanese friends, odds are they see you more as a mascot than anything else - you can’t really be true friend, because you aren’t Japanese.
- They are extremely sexually repressed (hence all the weird porn).
- Almost all the non-japanese people who know Japanese or want to learn are sexist weebs who don’t shower and creeped her out.
Like, yes, the Japanese have very nice trains. But the country has some really serious problems that trains don’t solve.
Don’t forget the xenophobia.
In the us, they would have made her drop out of school.
And then fined her for doing so.
And then sent her to jail for not being educated enough to have a job to pay the fine.
The US is really where the Outerworld’s is a documentary of, the only difference is that it is in space. But Robbie Williams is also not a money, but he was displayed as a monkey in Better Man so I guess is can still be an accurate documentary.
Hahahahaha! They think there’s public transportation in the US!
Giving that she’s Japanese, they would have deported her.
Other students also rode the train but Kana is the only consistent passenger.
On the other hand, found out yesterday, my step son’s school bus will no longer able to pick him up at my house next year after 2 years of riding the bus. Neat
Is there at least a stop within walking distance? I had to hoof it two blocks all through elementary school to catch the bus. It was through low-traffic residential streets, but still.
I can see where I was confusing.
School district was rezoned. Not sending busses to my area. He’d have to switch schools for 8th grade to get a bus or I’ll have to find a way of transportation.
I walked a mile to my elementary school. Had to walk a block or two for my middle school bus.
Ahhhh yeah, that would do it. :/
Two blocks is not very far to walk to catch a bus?
It’s not, but it felt like further than that when I was 7 years old.
I need proof. Someone have a link to an article backing this up? The internet is full of lies.
I’d already googled there’s a few. Please remember to stay wholesome
Awesome. Thanks!
ITT: people who have no clue how a train route works
rather than be mean, because not everyone is an expert in Japanese rail infrastructure, can you explain why?
You’re right, my previous comment doesn’t quite follow the wholesome theme here.
Many commenters are under the impression that the train is leaving the station solely to pick up this student, drop her off at school, and then travel back to the station. That would make sense if it was a taxi of some sort and she was the only passenger. However, trains in Japan have long routes, multiple stops, and pick up many, many passengers along the way. Keeping this stop for this student might add a few minutes to the total time it takes the train to run its full route but in no way is it a dramatic waste of resources and time that some people here are claiming. I’ve ridden on trains in Japan with hundreds of passengers that traveled hundreds of miles. Sometimes a train would make a stop in a rural area to pick up a few folks and other times we’d stop in a major city and pick up dozens of people. If one of those rural stops were nixed, I (as an existing passenger on the train) would barely notice a difference (maybe save a few minutes on my route), but I would bet the few folks who depend on that stop would be severely inconvenienced and struggle to find alternative means of transportation.
so it was a stop on the route.
still meaningful that they took into consideration that’s there’s one student who uses that stop.
most countries wouldn’t even consider people, just look at the profit margin and do cuts off regulations allow it
I love her scarf.
meanwhile Shizuoka Prefecture held up maglev construction, pushing back completion by 7 years because they’ve been begging for a Shinkansen stop for their airport forever, maybe, as “believed by some political analysts”. the actual stated reasoning has been concerns about environmental impact around construction.
not that I’m informed enough to take a side on that issue, beyond just really wanting to ride a 314mph/505kmh train someday!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen#Shizuoka_Prefecture_dispute
Okay, this is gonna sound Unwholesome, but the reality is that this happens because of the fall of the natality in japan, she was the only student in the school.
Nope: “along with more than 10 schoolmates at 7.15am.” The Straits Times "On boarding the train, Kana takes her seat amongst her schoolmates who got on board at earlier stations. Most of the passengers, indeed, are students at the Engaru Highschool. " The Online Citizen
Also, reducing human overpopulation is a good things because human overpopulation is the biggest cause of anthropogenic climate change (compare it to other causes), and the root cause of it. It’s also the root cause of the anthropocene extinction event and of that becoming a mass extinction event, and of factory farming, and of industrial fishing, and of habitat degradation and destruction, and of unsustainable pollution, …
humans civilization existed for over 10 thousand years, modern capitalism has existed for a couple hundred and is literally destroying the planet.
smart person online: “If we have to choose between Coca-Cola or a liveable planet, I choose exctintion, you know, instead of actually hurting the handful of billionaires who are destroying the planet”
The fall in human population is happening at way too slow a pace to help the environmental crisis. At the same time, it’s happening at way too fast a pace that it’s going to trigger multiple social crisis’ around the end of the century.
Overpopulation combined with the inefficient resource consumption of modern society. If our resource usage per person reduced at the same rate that population increased, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Also that graph is ridiculous. If there was one less child born per person alive, there would be zero children being born in most developed countries (it takes two people to have a child, which would mean two less children per couple). Of COURSE that would result in a drastically reduced carbon footprint, because we’d die out.
we’d die out.
Don’t get my hopes up
Bold strategy to double-down on the antinatalism after the recent terrorist attack by a hardline antinatalist.
That seems inefficient. And unrealistic.
World be damned if people do good things even at their own loss
It sends an important message if you zoom out: you can rely on the train for your lifestyle and don’t need a car.
When we cut trains from the least efficient places, we force those riders into a cycle of car ownership. When they move, they’ll still have the car. It chips away at the edges of the network until all that’s left are trains between major stops, where there’s no shade, and whoopsie some days the train just doesn’t come at all and you’ll need to take rideshare.
Don’t become like us.
Sincerely, an American on a late train to work right now
The sad part about this story is that the station closed, so if the next year there are other students they won’t have the option.
Would be terrible if we actually cared about people before the Almighty God of Profit!
One of the worst myths about capitalism is equating profit with efficiency.
Would have been cheaper and more efficient to just buy her a car
Edit: being downvoted by idiots who think running a train is more environmentally friendly than 1 EV.
I’d assume the train passes past the station either way, so it’s just a matter of stopping or not.
She probably has a yearly/minthly ticket, meaning no one needs to actually be tzere at the station. The train just comes, stops and goes. Doesn’t seem like too much of an added cost.
We’re making a lot of assumptions here.
Especially the American car people.
Yeah it’s a real stretch to assume that the train follows the same tracks every day
Given the chaos that occasionally happens to my local public transport, I could probably say this statement unironically.
Fair enough. But I also have experience living in Japan and using the trains daily. Each line is set and scheduled and if it was a minute late it either broke down entirely or there was an actual emergency. Commuter stops are also really quick, like a minute or two. It’s honestly really nice
I’m sure! Don’t worry, I was just making a joke about how bad the trains are for me locally. It’s not uncommon to see trains skipping the entire CITY because they’re behind schedule.
Haha that’s insane, wow
being downvoted by idiots who think running a train is more environmentally friendly than 1 EV.
In this case you’re the idiot for not realizing the train was already on this route and was just making ONE extra stop to pick her up. (Well two, I guess she would appreciate being dropped off as well).
P.S. Tell your mom that you are not cool, but an idiot.
Obviously the train goes to multiple stops on its route. For there to be one more stop is not the equivalent of a personal train sent only for her and no one else.
Your word of the day is “infill station”
Cars are inefficient, they can carry much fewer people and are also a lot more polluting.
Also, they are dirty and you need to watch traffic. In train you can study, read, actually develop instead of being miserable.
Not to mention you need to buy gas, schedule & pay for maintenance, etc.
Yeah nobody needs to pay for train maintenance, we all know it’s free! /s
The infrastructure for it is already in place
So you’re telling me that running, staffing and maintaining a train is more environmentally friendly than 1 electric vehicle?
In a vacuum, as a one time deal, developing from scratch? Probably no.
If you already have a robust train infrastructure? Depends on a length of a run, but it will be yes in more cases than you think. Trains are incredibly efficient.The train is already being ran, staffed, and maintained. The only difference is the cost of applying brakes as this stop and then restarting the engine. So you should be comparing having all passengers buy a vehicle instead of just this one student, or only the cost of stopping the train at this station.
They’re not running an entire train line for her. They’re making an extra stop on an existing train line.
The train was already there
Right but now is it more environmentally friendly or efficient to maintain, staff and run a train for one person? Give her an EV and everybody wins
The train station is unmanned and largely un-maintained. It’s just a dirt platform. The only thing the train has to do that it wasn’t already doing anyways is stop and start again, which consumes fewer resources than a separate EV driving all the way to the next nearest stop.
Except for wherever they sourced the lithium from, but ok.
🤦♂️ like arguing with a bot
There’s been like a dozen ppl pointing out the basic flaw in your logic (train is running anyway, just makes a 1 minute stop), but you ignored them all to focus on the one dumb comment about lithium sourcing.
The train already had about 10 students who got on at previous stations also going to her school. She was the only one at that particular stop. Her parents already has a car, and they use it to drive her for 5 minutes to the train station, the train then takes 1 hour to get to where her school is.
"There’s only one train heading away from the main city of Asahikawa toward Engaru High School each day, so Kana’s parents make the five-minute drive to the station in time for her to catch the 7:16 a.m. train every morning, where she’s the only regular passenger waiting on the elevated section of land serving as a platform. The journey to school takes almost one hour, giving Kana time to read, listen to music or study during test time.
When Kana boards the train, there are about 10 other passengers, mostly other students, inside." https://allabout-japan.com/en/article/1540/
