On Tuesday night, a passenger alerted safety to a 40-centimetre serpent lurking on a prepare between Nagoya and Tokyo, leading to a 17-minute hold-up.
It was unclear whether or not the cold-blooded commuter was venomous or the way it ended up on the prepare, and there was no damage or panic amongst passengers, a spokesman for Central Japan Railway Company stated.
Shinkansen clients can convey small dogs, cats and different animals, together with pigeons on board – however not snakes.
“It’s troublesome to think about wild snakes in some way climbing onto the prepare at one of many stations. We have guidelines towards bringing snakes into the shinkansen,” the spokesman stated.
“But we do not verify passengers’ baggage,” he added.
The prepare was initially scheduled to go on to Osaka, however the firm determined to make use of a unique prepare for the journey, inflicting a delay of about 17 minutes, he stated.
Patrols by uniformed safety guards onboard bullet trains had been scaled up after a deadly stabbing in 2018 on a shinkansen that shocked usually ultra-safe Japan.
Additional safety was added for the Olympics in 2021 and Group of Seven conferences final yr. (AFP)
