Doctor Yellow is the yellow inspection train of the Shinkansen. About once every ten days, it checks the state of the track and the overhead lines.
The JR Central train ended its inspection runs in January 2025 and retired. JR West aims to end inspection with its own Doctor Yellow in 2027 or later.
In December 2016, the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs published a survey of how ministries prepare for questions in the Diet. The notices of questions from all members were complete, on average across ministries, at 8:56 in the evening. The latest came at midnight.
The divisions responsible for each answer were fixed on average at 10:36 at night, in the latest case at 4:50 in the morning. Each ministry received about 51 questions a day. In October, 476 officials were on duty on the night before a committee session, against 221 on an ordinary night.
Yattsuke shigoto (やっつけ仕事): a rush job, work that is quick and careless. An article in ITmedia’s business magazine compares it to climbing a mountain without first checking the route on the map, starting to climb without looking at anything.
The publisher Shinchōsha has a kōetsu-bu, a department for checking manuscripts. Its own site says that 60 people work there and check every publication. Their checks go beyond typos to the facts of what is described. One note to an author read: “From Tokyo to Nagoya, a car will not arrive in this time, even on the expressway.” Another noted that the hero’s home was on the first floor, while in the previous book it had been on the second.
The critic Tokuoka Takao called the department a lone demon of the publishing world, with an attitude that never allows a mistake. On October 5, 2016, Nippon Television began broadcasting the drama Jimi ni sugoi! Kōetsu gāru Kōno Etsuko (Plain but Amazing! Proofreading Girl Kōno Etsuko), with Ishihara Satomi in the title role. It was based on a novel by Miyagi Ayako.
At Tokyo Station, a Shinkansen train is cleaned in just seven minutes. As a rule, a team of 23 workers takes charge of one train. In that time they line up the seats, collect the trash, wipe the windows and tables, and clean the cabins, the decks, the toilets and the washbasins.
The work became known as the sebun minittsu mirakuru, the seven-minute miracle.
In fiscal 2016, about 130,000 trains ran on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen. Their average delay was 24 seconds per train. The figure includes delays caused by natural disasters such as earthquakes, heavy rain and heavy snow.
Ishibashi o tataite wataru (石橋を叩いて渡る): to tap on a stone bridge before crossing it. Even a bridge that looks solid is checked for safety first. Doing things with caution on top of caution.
Sonae areba urei nashi (備えあれば憂いなし): if prepared, no worries. A person who is always ready for an emergency need not worry when one happens.
Nen ni wa nen o ireyo (念には念を入れよ): add care to care. In important matters, take great care that no mistake happens, and then check once more.
Japanese railway workers point at a signal and call out what they see. The practice, shisa koshō, began with steam locomotive drivers of Japanese National Railways who checked signals this way.
In 1994, the Railway Technical Research Institute tested it. Without pointing or calling, the error rate was 2.38 percent. With both, it was 0.38 percent, about one sixth.
On November 14, 2017, a Tsukuba Express train left Minami-Nagareyama Station about 20 seconds before its scheduled time. The operating company published an apology: “We deeply apologize for the great inconvenience caused to our customers.”