Shinjuku train station

Yesterday I watched a documentary about the world's busiest train station – Shinjuku station in Japan. Wow. It was amazing.

Actually, at first I was amazed and told e, can we go can we go?

And as I continued to watch and saw how they literally squeezed people onto trains during rush hour and there have been cases of broken bones (the squeeze shown on the show was worse than the picture above), I said, so stress. I don't want to go anymore. I just want to go see the station but not sit on the train. And he said, no space to sit.

Shinjuku train station has hundreds of dedicated and well trained staff who understand the importance of their job. The station sees five times more commuters than London's busiest station, and with such crazy numbers, even things like flow of traffic is monitored and redirected when necessary so people don't clog up the area and cause a stampede (like, wuddd). The crowd sometimes gets so massive that one staff described it as, "the crowd moves like liquid".

They talked about how staff have can never be late (some have bunks in the station), have to deal with multiple peak hours (business peak hours, party peak hours, and tourist peak hour where they are inundated with questions), keep an eye out for people who might be attempting suicide (people throw themselves onto tracks – Japan has a very high suicide rate), stay alert for potential terrorist attacks (there was once a sarin gas case which killed 12, caused temporary blindness in a thousand, and injured many others), and deal with drunks trying to squeeze the last train home – or just being too drunk to even make it home.

Also apparently at peak hour, a train arrives at a platform every 2 minutes. In some other countries, a minute late is considered on time. But in Japan, a minute late is a big deal, especially when the next train is coming in the next 60 seconds.

I was really amazed by the planning and effort that goes behind running the world's busiest train station like clockwork. While watching, I thought, ah this is where tax money goes – this is where tax money is worth it!