Two single-carriage trains collided head-on after a suspected brake failure on a private railway line in the town of Matsuoka, Fukui Prefecture, Sunday afternoon, leaving one train operator dead and 23 people injured, local police said.
Some 30 people were aboard the two trains when they collided, they said.
Train operator Tadao Sasaki, 57, was pronounced dead after being taken to a nearby hospital, while the probationary driver of the other train suffered serious injuries and remains in a coma, they said.
Injured passengers were rushed to various local hospitals, including Fukui Medical College Hospital and Fukui Prefectural Hospital.
The collision occurred at around 1:30 p.m. near Shiizakai Station on the main Echizen Line of Keifuku Electric Railroad Co. when the train coming from Eiheiji Station on a branch line failed to stop at Higashi-Furuichi Station and continued onto the main line for about 1 km, railway officials said.
The train that failed to stop was traveling at about 20 kph and the other train at 60 kph at the time of collision, they said.
Sasaki, who was operating the train coming from Eiheiji Station, radioed the railway company moments before the collision to report that the train's brakes had failed, the officials said. The company had reportedly urged Sasaki to stop the train at the Higashi Furuichi station.
Although the two single-carriage trains were wrecked, neither derailed, the officials said.
Neither train was equipped with the automatic train stop system. The train coming from Eiheiji was made in 1928, according to the railway company.
Kojima Yukio, senior managing director of Keifuku Railroad, met the press in Fukui Sunday night and apologized for the accident.
Kojima denied any connection between delays in installing the automatic train system and its money-losing line.