The occurred on April 24, 1951, when a

63 series 63 may refer to: * 63 (number) * one of the years 63 BC, AD 63, 1963, 2063 * +63, telephone country code in the Philippines * Flight 63 (disambiguation) * ''63'' (album), by Tree63 * ''63'' (mixtape), by Kool A.D. * "Sixty Three", a song by Karm ...

Keihin Line (now part of the Negishi Line) train approaching Sakuragichō Station in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

hit a loose

overhead wire An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...

causing a short circuit and starting a fire which killed 106 people and injured 92.

Accident

On the day in question, maintenance crews were renewing the

electrical insulators An electrical insulator is a material in which electric current does not flow freely. The atoms of the insulator have tightly bound electrons which cannot readily move. Other materials—semiconductors and conductors—conduct electric current ...

of the overhead wires when at 1:38 PM a hanging wire (from which the contact wire is suspended) was accidentally cut allowing the contact wire to hang down. Four minutes later a 5-car MoHa 63 series train (1271B) approached from Yokohama Station and changed lines 50 metres before Sakuragichō but the pantograph of the leading carriage became tangled in the hanging contact wire. The driver attempted to lower the pantograph, but it fell sideways and hit the wooden carriage, causing sparks which started a fire on the roof which rapidly spread to the rest of the carriage. The 150 people travelling in the carriage were unable to open the electrically operated doors. The connecting door to the second carriage only opened inwards, impossible with the crowd of panicking passengers inside. Finally, the windows of the carriage were too small to escape through:

cars, of wartime design, employed many cost-cutting measures, one of which was a three-pane window design, where only lower and upper panes could be opened. Intended to escape an expense of a large, full-sized glass pane, this design left the openings too small to pass through. The passengers were therefore trapped; the first car, constructed soon after World War II of combustible materials (another cost-cutting measure was the wooden roof of these cars), was completely consumed by fire within ten minutes, killing 106 people and injuring 92 more.

Response

The investigation report resulted in improved fire-proofing of all such carriages and the provision of through-corridors between carriages. Although the electrically-operated doors had manual overrides positioned under the passenger seats, this was poorly signed. The report resulted in their being marked with red signage. This accident also caused the resignation of

Hideo Shima was a Japanese engineer and the driving force behind the building of the first bullet train (Shinkansen). Shima was born in Osaka in 1901, and educated at the Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied Mechanical Engineering. His father was p ...

, director of the railway's rolling stock department, in 1951. Shima was later employed with

Japanese National Railways The abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987. Network Railways As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 pref ...

in 1955 to design and build Japan's first "bullet train" ( Shinkansen). A monument to the accident victims was subsequently built at

Sōji-ji is one of two of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. The other is Eihei-ji temple in Fukui Prefecture. ''Fodor's'' calls it "one of the largest and busiest Buddhist institutions in Japan". The temple was founded in 740 as a Shingon Buddhist temp ...

Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama is one of the 18 ku (Wards of Japan, wards) of the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of 2010, the ward had an estimated population of 270,433 and a population density, density of 8,140 persons per km². The total area is 33.23&nb ...

References

Sources

Train Fire at Sakuragi-cho
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sakuragicho train fire 1951 fires in Asia Fires in Japan Accidents and incidents involving Japanese National Railways Railway accidents and incidents in Japan Railway accidents in 1951 Train and rapid transit fires History of Kanagawa Prefecture Rail transport in Kanagawa Prefecture Transport in Yokohama 1951 in Japan April 1951 events in Asia 1951 disasters in Japan

Accident

Response

See also

References

Sources