New maintenance cars deployed as quake countermeasure on Shinkansen line

West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) demonstrated two recently acquired rail maintenance cars intended to strengthen the Sanyo Shinkansen Line against possible earthquake damage. A ceremony was held before the media on April 27, 2016, at a Shinkansan maintenance facility in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. The first of the new JR West maintenance carriages is designed to quickly and continuously lift out old railway ties and lay new ones equipped with derailment prevention guards in their place. The second carriage is equipped with a crane and is designed to replace overhead electricity poles made of concrete with new ones made of steel.