| 1 | 1 | | 'It was the hat. It was the hat that I really objected to,' says Mr Tomioka. ' I joined |
| 2 | | the underground railway straight from school in 1957, when jobs were scarce. It wasn 't |
| 3 | | from choice. In my first months, I hated it.' |
| 4 | | 'New recruits are always assigned first to sweep the platforms and clean the toilets,' |
| 2 | 5 | | Mr Tornioka continues, 'and I [id:74451] that one of my old schoolfriends would come into |
| 6 | | the lavatory while I was cleaning it and see what kind of job I had. But I got used to it. I |
| 7 | | even liked wearing the uniform. It was only the hat th at I couldn't bear. I don't know why, |
| 8 | | but it made me feel [id:74452] |
| 3 | 9 | | Yet Mr Tomioka came to like his work. Unlike the London Underground, the Tokyo |
| 10 | | subway, known as the Eidan, has found a way of making its [id:74453] feel th at even the |
| 11 | | most routine job is important. By taking examinations, Mr Tomioka progressed from |
| 12 | | ticket-clipper to ticket-office clerk, and from there to the general office of the station and |
| 13 | | up to the dizzy heights of deputy station-master. He now works at the biggest underground |
| 14 | | station in Tokyo. Every day, 420,000 people pass through its 66 exits. |
| 4 | 15 | | On average, th ere are 25 full-time employees on each of Tokyo's 141 stations. They |
| 16 | | are [id:74454] : standing on every platform, clipping and collecting every ticket by hand, and |
| 17 | | generally keeping an eye on things. One would never guess that the London Underground, |
| 18 | | where finding someone to answer a question can take 15 minutes, has almost as [id:74455] |
| 19 | | per station. |
| 5 | 20 | | Two years ago, the Eidan launched a campaign to make its staff more [id:74456] the |
| 21 | | public. lts slogan was the English word MASK: Marmer, Attitude, Smile, Kindness. One |
| 22 | | example of how it works is that station staff regularly lend passengers who have lost their |
| 23 | | money the cost of a fare home. The system is entirely unofficial, and the money comes |
| 24 | | from [id:74457] |
| 6 | 25 | | The railway is run on an extraordinarily strict mie book. The [id:74458] lo be found |
| 26 | | on every platform actually mean something. Trains run at intervals of three or four |
| 27 | | minutes during the day, precisely enough to set a watch by. So reliable is the system that a |
| 28 | | teacher of English from America who tried to blame the trains when turning up late for |
| 29 | | work last month, was told to bring a note from the railway next time. |
| 7 | 30 | | To be fair , the differences between public transport in Tokyo and London are partly |
| 31 | | the result of differences in attitude, which are just as visible in Japan's highly disciplined |
| 32 | | schools, in its department stores with their bowing lift-girls, and in its manufacturing |
| 33 | | industry which is obsessed with improving quality and cutting costs year after year. An |
| 34 | | official of the London Underground admitted last year that 'more than half' of the |
| 35 | | railway's staff are so bloody-minded and unhelpful to customers that [id:74459] them will |
| 36 | | not do any good. |
| 8 | 37 | | There is one sense in which the Eidan has a better starting-position than London: its |
| 38 | | [id:74460]. To be fair , Tokyo-ites are as fond of cheating with the fares as Londoners and |
| 39 | | drop more cigarette ends on the platform. Apart from that, however, they are |
| 40 | | extraordinarily well-behaved. [id:74461], they do not delay the trains by holding the doors |
| 41 | | open for their friends. They do not vandalise the ticket machines or the telephones. None |
| 42 | | of the seats are torn. And, perhaps the clearest possible proof of [id:74462] the system, the |
| 43 | | first thing most passengers do as soon as they sit down on the train, is go to sleep. |
