Facility to Preserve Crashed JR West Train to Be Completed in Dec.

Takarazuka, Hyogo Pref., Nov. 10 (Jiji Press)–West Japan Railway Co., or JR West, has said a facility to preserve its train that crashed in 2005 and killed more than 100 passengers will be completed in mid-December. The company informed bereaved relatives and people injured in the accident of the schedule at a meeting held behind closed doors in the city of Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, on Saturday. A total of 62 people attended the session, including those at a separate venue where it was broadcast live, according to JR West. On the morning of April 25, 2005, a seven-car JR West train derailed while traveling on a curve of the Fukuchiyama Line in the city of Amagasaki, Hyogo, at a speed far exceeding the limit for the section, and some of the cars crashed into a nearby condominium building. The accident left 106 passengers and the train driver dead and some 560 others injured. The train preservation facility will sit next to JR West’s employee training center in the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture, a Hyogo neighbor. For preservation, the severely damaged first to fourth cars of the train will be separated into parts, while the fifth to seventh cars, which retain their original shape, will be coupled together. “The JR West group as a whole will work further to ensure safe train operations,” the company’s president, Shoji Kurasaka, told a news conference after the meeting. JR West will give bereaved relatives and survivors a tour of the preservation facility after its completion, while taking their feelings into consideration based on advice from experts, he said. “I want the crashed train to be opened to the general public as well” although bereaved relatives and survivors are divided over the matter, Yuriko Saito, an 83-year-old participant of Saturday’s meeting, said. “The accident is becoming forgotten,” said Saito, who lost her first son, then 37, in the accident. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]