Press "Enter" to skip to content

Drunk man wanders along Yamanote Line tracks ‘after breaking up with girlfriend’

TOKYO (TR) – As Neil Sedaka sang six decades ago, “Breaking up is hard to do” — and that was definitely the case for one intoxicated man in Minato Ward on Friday.

As the Yomiuri Shimbun (April 9) tells it, the man, aged in his 30s, wandered several hundred meters along the tracks of the JR Yamanote Line between Shimbashi and Hamamatsucho stations at around 8:10 a.m.

East Japan Railway Co. employees then apprehended him and alerted police. He is now being questioned on a voluntary basis on suspicion of violating the Railway Operation Act.

“After breaking up with my girlfriend, I drank beer at Shinagawa Station this morning,” he told the Atago Police Station. “I became desperate and wanted to die. So I jumped onto the tracks at Shimbashi Station.”

According JR East, the Yamanote, Keihin Tohoku and Tokaido lines were either fully or partially delayed, inconveniencing about 80,000 commuters.