Tokyo morning rush-hour trains were delayed Monday for up to 19 minutes due to a groper who assaulted a high school student but when identified dodged passengers and staff and escaped across the tracks.
The shutdown affected 58,000 passengers on 36 trains, including some on JR's Keihin Tohoku and Utsunomiya lines.
The 18-year-old victim said a man in his 40s molested her aboard a local Keihin Tohoku train, according to the Oji Police Station and East Japan Railway Co.
The man was intercepted and almost caught at around 7:55 a.m. on the platform of JR Oji Station in Kita Ward, but he leaped down onto the track, scaled a 2-meter-high fence and ran off.
A conductor aboard another train spotted the man sprinting along the tracks and sent out an emergency signal that halted other trains in the area.
As of Monday afternoon, police were still hunting for the suspect.