Have you ever wondered what the Train Delay Certificate (Chien Shoumei) is? Let us explain…
With typhoonFaxai (Typhoon No. 15) just over and trains suspended for a few hours in the morning, it did not come as a surprise trains were, let’s say “rather full” this morning. With infamous white-gloved station staff helping fellow travelers to squeeze into the even fullest train.
As you may know, Japanese companies, governments, and schools have been and still are unbelievably strict about arriving on time. So anything disrupting traffic is causing a major issue.
And the Japanese railway company has come up with an ingenious solution; the 電車遅延証明書 (densha chien shoumeisho). Which is a small paper, not bigger than a business card, that officially confirms the delay. Basically a train delay certificate. Which, if handed to your superior or teacher will free you of any wrongdoing. If everything would be that easy.
Generally, this tiny paper certificate indicates the date as well as how late trains were running. They are issued for any delay staring from about 5 minutes or more and they are available at any exit gate.
But as nostalgic as this is, of course, Japan also has a more modern solution for this and you can now also find this information online. So if you cannot get a hold of the hard copy at the exit gate, you can now get it via your phone or computer. Pretty handy isn’t it?
Check out the links below for each railway company, in case you did miss picking up that slip! And the best part, they are available a few days later, so if anything goes wrong you can still get it.
All sites are mainly in Japanese, but with a bit of google magic, should be easy enough to navigate ????
