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>“Why should I not want to die for a country like this when the government is ready to go an extra mile just for me,” one commenter wrote on CCTV’s Facebook pag
by desdiv 11y ago
>“Why should I not want to die for a country like this when the government is ready to go an extra mile just for me,” one commenter wrote on CCTV’s Facebook page. “This is the meaning of good governance penetrating right to the grassroot level. Every citizen matters. No Child left behind!”
Ironically, the railway is a private one, i.e. Japan Railways Hokkaido[0] is private corporation, not a government agency. And yet the company executives, and to a lesser extent, the shareholders, okayed this arrangement. I can't imagine this happening anywhere outside of Japan.
There's a similar phenomenon in the UK called "ghost trains"[1] that's only superficially similar. Basically there's a ton of bureaucracy in closing down a line, so instead of actually closing a line, we just run an unscheduled and unannounced "ghost train" through it once a week.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_Railway_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_Railway_Company
[1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-secret-ghost-trains http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150723-why-britain-has-sec...
- Symbiote 11y ago"Ghost trains" in the UK are scheduled and announced, they're just easy to miss, as almost all are at the beginning or end of service, often the first train of the day out of the depot.
- jpatokal 11y agoJapan Railways Hokkaido[0] is private corporation, not a government agency Notionally. In practice, their operations are fairly minutely controlled -- sorry, "guided" -- by various levels of government, which explains, among many other things, why the JRs continue to operate tons of lines that are loss-making.
- pilsetnieks 11y agoIt's public transportation, it's heavily regulated by national and/or municipal governments in most countries.
- 7952 11y agoIn Britain there are also 150 odd request stops that you have to flag the train down.
- WildUtah 11y agoThe last Amtrak flag stop in the USA that I knew of was Green River, Utah. Until a few years ago, you could flag down the California Zephyr and get aboard there any day of the year. Otherwise it would pass through town without pause.