A Japanese railway worker halted a commuter train by pressing an emergency stop button because he needed an excuse for running late for work, police said after arresting the man.
Masahiro Matsumoto, 23, employed at the Nishioji station in Kyoto prefecture, pressed a roadside emergency stop button at a train crossing, causing a Nara line train to stop for about four minutes.
A police spokesman quoted Matsumoto as saying after his arrest: “I was running late for work and I thought it could be an excuse if a train stopped because of the emergency stop.”
The police officer told AFP that Matsumoto, himself a rail commuter, was trying to cause follow-up delays on the train line so that he could “tell his boss that his late arrival could not be helped.”
Police were staking out the crossing following six similar cases and were investigating whether the railway employee was responsible for any of them.
His employer, West Japan Railway Co., said in a statement: “We sincerely regret the arrest of our employee, which caused our customers and others concerned to lose trust in us.”(AFP)
日本警方表示，他們逮捕了一名鐵路員工，他因上班遲到要找藉口，竟按下緊急停止按鈕讓一列通勤火車停下。
二十三歲的松本雅宏任職於京都府西大路站，他按下一處鐵路平交道路旁的緊急停止按鈕，導致一列奈良線列車停駛約四分鐘。
警方發言人引述松本被捕後的話說：「我上班要遲到了，心想如果火車因為緊急事故停駛，就可以作為我的藉口了。」
這位警官對法新社表示，松本是一位火車通勤族，他企圖引發該線列車延誤，這樣他就可以「跟老闆解釋他遲到是因為不可抗拒的原因」。
發生過六起類似事件後，警方就開始監視這個平交道，他們正在調查這些事件是否和這名鐵路員工有關。
他所屬的西日本旅客鐵道株式會社在一份聲明中表示：「我們對社內同仁被捕深感遺憾，此舉已使顧客和其他相關人士失去對我們的信任。」（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）