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The story
On the afternoon of September 8, heavy rain disrupted the Tokaido Shinkansen, suspending inbound (up) service between Shin-Osaka and Nagoya, and outbound (down) service between Mishima and Shin-Osaka. According to FNN, torrential rain of 70mm per hour was recorded between Nagoya and Gifu-Hashima. In the Nagoya area, roads flooded near Chikusa Station and the Imaike intersection, and conventional lines such as Meitetsu and Kintetsu suspended operations across the board too, prompting a flurry of posts saying that even detours had become impossible. On 5ch, discussion centered on why the suspended sections differed between the up and down directions, and why the Shinkansen — despite its strict rainfall thresholds — wasn’t even running at reduced speed, with some expressing shock at flood footage, saying it “looks like AI.”
9/8 (Tue) 15:45
FNN Prime Online
According to JR Central (JR Tokai), the Tokaido Shinkansen is currently suspending service between Shin-Osaka and Nagoya (inbound/up) and between Mishima and Shin-Osaka (outbound/down) due to the ongoing heavy rain.
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
Probably has to do with rolling stock scheduling, right?
Going up (the up line) wears you out. Going down (the down line) is easier — but you might get hurt.
But you're not even fighting in the first place.
'As far as Nagoya' doesn't even make sense. Like, is it Osaka-to-Nagoya on JR Central and Nagoya-to-Tokyo on JR East or something?
It's the almighty 'Central,' you know? If anything, they should just run the whole line themselves.
The conventional lines are down too. On top of that, both Meitetsu and Kintetsu are stopped, so you can't even take a detour.
Just take the Hokuriku Shinkansen home!
The conventional lines are a total mess. Even Kintetsu and Meitetsu are stopped. JR's rain thresholds are stricter than those local private railways, so there's no way it's running.
You don't have to go home, you know. If safety's the concern, staying indoors is the best option, sir.
Nagoya City is at Level 5. (Japan's highest disaster warning level — meaning the disaster is already underway.)
That's a linear rainband alert for you. (A stationary band of storm clouds that dumps torrential rain on one spot for hours on end.)
He quit that ages ago.
https://www.youtube.com/live/J0EKcMQ2mPk?si=lIWWJg3PL3pZZ6IT
Inbound service is suspended all the way to Okayama, so people in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area are getting hit by this too.
Once it gets to this point, there's no way they're running again for a while.
It's starting back up — the train on the through-track just began moving.
The conventional lines probably can't, but the Shinkansen's a different story — once the rain lets up and there's no damage, they can restart it.
The Shinkansen's rainfall rules are strict. They could at least crawl along at like 30km/h to reach a station — including the through-tracks, they can generally hold two trains there, and passengers could get off via a boarding ladder between cars if it came to that. It's baffling why they won't even run it at 30km/h. Conventional lines are one thing, but this is the Shinkansen we're talking about.
Thanks for the update — take care getting home. Stay safe out there.
There's video too
https://x.com/ebisan2026/status/2097234522282901995
＼(^o^)／ (a classic throw-your-hands-up emoticon of despair)
This isn't AI — it genuinely looks like Niagara Falls.
Given the shape of Chikusa Station, this was bound to happen. The water was up to knee height at the Imaike intersection too.
There probably will be eventually.
Once it hits Level 5, maybe.
Was doing a workout and nearly died
https://x.com/kamf2290/status/2097223189776769507
@Murahochaaaaan
That's wild
https://x.com/Murahochaaaaan/status/2097222169134796925
Oh, this is the one — looks like straight-up AI, but it's actually real?
There's literally a frame built in for a flood barrier panel — why didn't they just put the panel in?
Background and Key Points of This Story
The Tokaido Shinkansen operates under its own weather-based restrictions: when rainfall or wind speed exceeds set thresholds, decisions to slow down or suspend service are made section by section. This time, the fact that the suspended sections differed between the up (Shin-Osaka–Nagoya) and down (Mishima–Shin-Osaka) directions reflects both where the rain was concentrated and differences in operational turnback points — meaning the thread’s guess that it was ‘probably related to rolling stock scheduling’ was roughly on target. In the Nagoya area, what appears to have been a linear rainband dumped intense rain in a short span, flooding roads around Chikusa Station and the Imaike intersection; Meitetsu and Kintetsu also halted service, leaving alternative transport nonfunctional as well. Some also asked why the trains couldn’t at least run at reduced speed — but the Shinkansen operates under far stricter rainfall thresholds than conventional lines, so the standard practice is to stop trains entirely in sections that exceed the threshold rather than merely slow them down. That nuance is easy to miss from the news report alone and is a common point of confusion.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Tokaido Shinkansen] Up service suspended between Shin-Osaka and Nagoya, down service suspended between Mishima and Shin-Osaka — 70mm of rain recorded per hour between Nagoya and Gifu-Hashima.”
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