Saikyo Sen: Train Suicide?

It is so crazy that I actually forgot about this until now. I ride the Saikyo line everyday to school. Its a really major one that runs through most of the big Tokyo stops (Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya). I have to transfer to the Saikyo at Akabane. A ton of people take it, so there are always lines and even crowds of people waiting to climb the stairs to get to the platform.

Today there was a mass of people waiting at the bottom of the stairs that go up to the platform. No one was going up. It was blocked off. The time schedule was blank for the Saikyo going both directions. It looked like no one knew what was going on. Very odd.

I was so lucky because I was with a French guy from my dorm. Thank goodness for him because he knew another route we could go and still get to school. We were a couple minutes late, but I was just happy I made it in time to take the quiz.

Now I am beginning to think that I barely missed witnessing a train suicide. There is a really good chance that an accident happened before we got there on the very line and at the very station that we were at. There would be no other reason for them to completely stop all the Saikyo trains AND not even let people up the the platform.

At the same time, a lot of the media portrayal and common belief here is that train suicides are an "inconvenience" and not so much of a human tragedy. I might have mentioned before, but the JR company that runs a lot of stations is starting to fine the families of people who commit suicides at train stations. Not only does that seem rather harsh to me, but it also seems to show a total disrespect for the life lost and the family grieving. I don't think I'll ever fully understand suicides, but I have certainly had a lot more exposure to the problem since I've been here.