The Guardian reports that a Japanese train operator has apologised to customers for a train that departed 20 seconds early.
Commuters usually complain about delays and cancelled trains, but a Japanese railway company apologised on Tuesday 14 November 2017 for departing early — 20 seconds to be exact.
The Tsukuba Express line between Tokyo and the city of Tsukuba in Japan was scheduled to leave 9:44:40 local time, but instead left at 9:44:20, robbing riders the 20 seconds to sprint to the train before the doors close. The train was departing from the Minami Nagareyama Station, located north of Tokyo.
In England it’s a bit different. SRTA often sees complaints that Southeastern staff have closed the doors way too early – but that seems to be so that customers can pointlessly stab the open doors button for 30 seconds or more before the train actually departs.
As most readers will know very few Thameslink service on the Sevenoaks route are due to have first accommodation. So standard class ticket holders may occupy the first-class areas on the class 700 trains.
There’s a problem with tickets issued with the Goldcard discount for holders of annual season tickets. It seems that the ticket barriers are programmed not to open automatically with them. Instead the customer is expected go to the ticket barrier staff to have their ticket and their card inspected. That’s inconvenient and wastes time.
