Breakdown of energy supply systems

A power outage hit JR Ueno Station on the morning of Jan. 30, halting rapid and local services on sections of the JR Joban Line.An overhead wire on the Joban Line platform was found to be severed after the outage hit at about 6:55 a.m., and East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) is investigating the cause. It said it expected services to resume at about 2 p.m.Four trains stopped between stations, and passengers were guided down onto the tracks and led to the nearest station.The Utsunomiya and Takasaki lines were also suspended, but resumed operations shortly after 8 a.m. In response to the outage, JR East ran special Tohoku Shinkansen bullet train services between Tokyo and Omiya stations.On Jan. 16, a power outage caused by a substation problem in the morning also halted services on the JR Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines and other routes. The suspension lasted up to about eight hours, severely impacting morning commuters. In total, 747 trains were canceled, affecting some 673,000 people.According to JR East, the Jan. 16 outage occurred on the five-station stretch between Shimbashi and Shinagawa stations, where the Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines run parallel. Renovation work was being carried out at Tamachi Station, located in the middle of this section, in the early hours of Jan. 16. There is a possibility that a malfunction in equipment used during the work caused the outage.