JR East employs first female bullet train operator
I’m gratified to announce my return to this blog (after an absence partly caused by the recent volcanic ash….) with a smile-inducing story involving a female train operator. Her name is Yukie Sakai.
Personally, the thought of which gender the driver of the train I was riding had never crossed my mind before. I suppose that, subconciously, I generally assumed the driver to be male and middle-aged.
JR East has appointed its first female bullet-train operator on the Tohoku Shinkansen line, it was announced on Tuesday, as Yukie Sakai boarded the Tokyo-bound “Hayate-Komachi” bullet-train at Sendai Station in front of reporters.
The 29-year-old Sakai was born in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture. According to JR East, she joined the company in April of 2001 and gained experience as a conductor and a train operator on non-bullet train lines. In October of 2009 she began learning as an apprentice on the Tohoku Shinkansen line, and on March 23 of this year she obtained her bullet-train operating license. She began operating on the Tohoku line by herself on April 9.
Sakai joins about 400 male bullet-train operators in the company. JR Tokai and JR West already have women actively contributing as bullet-train operators.
Original Japanese lanuage story HERE plus image of a smiling Yukie.
I’ll be updating my fan site progress – such as it is – in the next few days so do call back if interested.
Tags: japan, jr rail, shinkansen
03/05/2010 23:43 
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