Line of Boiling Riders

Streaking at 125 miles an hour along the 420-mile scenic route between Tokyo and the central city of Okayama, Japan's gleaming, automated bullet trains have long been a keen source of pride to the country and the envy of railroad men the world over. Yet, beneath the bright image of the Shinkansen, or bullet express, most of the country's rail service, operated by the government-owned Japanese National Railways, is a tangled, money-losing mess of aged equipment, angry employees and boiling riders. So bad is the trouble that a few weeks ago, JNR President Satoshi Isozaki abruptly quit and, to emphasize the discouraging nature of the job, pointedly refused to follow tradition and recommend a successor.

The new chief, Matsutaro Fujii, faces a daunting challenge in trying to restore the line's prosperity and revive the harmony that was once the hallmark of the "national railway family," or kokutetsu ikka. With trucking taking away most of its freight business and airlines slowly chewing into its passenger traffic, the railroad has been losing money since 1964. Last year its accumulated deficit stood at $2.5 billion; interest on its debt alone totals $2 million a day. Thus the line, which daily carries up to 18 million people, has been severely pinched for funds to improve its services and battle its competitors.

The JNR's four unions, led by the militant engineers, have grown increasingly restless in their demands for higher pay, better working conditions and, most of all, the right to strike. That privilege was rescinded by General Douglas MacArthur during the occupation and never restored. Constant work stoppages have stoked to white heat the anger of Japanese commuters, probably the world's most poorly served travelers. Because scheduled runs are inadequate and cars too small for transportation needs, the line has the familiar permanent "shovers" at busy stations to ram passengers into suffocatingly close-packed trains. Last spring, during a labor slowdown, riders finally exploded, attacked rail workers, rampaged through stations and caused damages of more than $30 million.

To reverse the rail system's dangerously downhill direction, Premier Kakuei Tanaka, an avid train buff, helped push through the Diet a ten-year, $40 billion program to upgrade JNR's equipment and tracks.

Part of the plan will extend the automated bullet lines, the only profitable segment of the railroad, by 1,000 miles by 1979. In all, Tanaka is calling for enlarging the tracks for bullet trains to 4,500 miles within the next dozen years. Though Tanaka's political opponents agree that JNR must be improved, they argue that the $40 billion plan is too lavish and will give a big push to inflation, already at 13%. The unions are not overly impressed either. They plan yet another paralyzing rail slowdown next month.

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