Some Tokaido Shinkansen Line trains were delayed Monday morning after an automatic train control system twice failed to properly send departure signals to trains at Odawara Station in Kanagawa Prefecture, Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) said.
JR Tokai stopped all outbound trains at the station to confirm safety, including Nozomi and Hikari trains scheduled to pass the station, causing 42 trains to be delayed up to an hour and affecting about 45,000 passengers.
At around 8:05 a.m., the Kodama 563 bound for Nagoya from Tokyo failed to receive a departure signal. It left Odawara about 20 minutes late after the stationmaster made a manual safety confirmation. At 10:20 a.m., a similar glitch occurred on the Kodama 567 bound for Nagoya from Tokyo.