[JP] Passed away: Yoshiyuki Kasai, Central Japan Railway †

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[JP] Passed away: Yoshiyuki Kasai, Central Japan Railway †

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JR Central honorary chairman Kasai, who led rail privatization, dies
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2022-05-27 _ Kasai_JR Tokai
2022-05-27 _ Kasai_JR Tokai
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Source: Mainichi Japan https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... bu/097000c Accessed: May 27, 2022
Yoshiyuki Kasai, the honorary chairman of Central Japan Railway Co. who played a key role in privatizing Japan National Railways in the late 1980s, has died of interstitial pneumonia, the train operator said Friday. He was 81.

Kasai, who died Wednesday, was one of the three key figures along with the former presidents of JR East and JR West who led the reform of Japan's railway system and breakup of the state-owned operator in 1987. The privatization created six regional passenger and one freight rail operator along with several other private companies.

[...]

The Tokyo native sought to sell the firm's high-speed railway systems such as maglev trains overseas, saying that its maglev technology would "take the lead in ultrafast transport services in the 21st century." In 2010, Kasai and then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took a demonstration ride on a maglev in Japan amid hopes to sell the system to the United States.

At home, Kasai pushed a plan for maglev trains called Linear Chuo Shinkansen to run at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour to connect Tokyo and Nagoya, located 286 kilometers apart, in 40 minutes, less than half the time taken by existing shinkansen trains.

But he was cautious about exporting Japan's shinkensen bullet train system to China out of concerns over the transfer of key technology to the country.
Source: Mainichi Japan https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... bu/097000c Accessed: May 27, 2022
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latestnews
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[JP] Y Japanese Advocate of Super-Fast Trains Dies at 81 With Final Project Unfinished

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Japanese Advocate of Super-Fast Trains Dies at 81 With Final Project Unfinished

Former bullet-train CEO Yoshiyuki Kasai advised former prime minister Shinzo Abe and was strong pro-U.S. voice

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2022-06-04- Kasai
2022-06-04- Kasai
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Source: https://images.wsj.net/im-554353?width=860&size=1.5 The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/japanese-a ... 1654092003

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Miss Maglev
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[JP] Yoshiyuki Kasai, Central Japan Railway ...

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JR Tokai without an emperor

Honorary Chairman Takayuki Kasai of Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai), until shortly before his death, was giving his subordinates a hard time about the Linear Central Shinkansen project. The Linear Line project has many technical and profit issues, and JR companies believed that the plan would be revised after the change of top management. However, once the decision was made to inject 3 trillion yen from the FILP, it became difficult to revise the plan. In Part 1 of the 8-part special feature "JR Central without an Emperor," we will examine how the soaring construction costs and declining passenger numbers are making it impossible to foresee the profitability of the Linear Line project, based on our own calculations.

 Honorary Chairman Takayuki Kasai of JR Tokai passed away on May 25, 2022 at the age of 81, an autocratic leader who had held the power of representation for 28 years since he became vice president in 1990.

 The cause of his death, interstitial pneumonia, is a disease that causes inflammation and damage to the walls of the alveoli, making it difficult to take in oxygen. Generally, it is said that there is a sense of fear as breathing gradually becomes more difficult, but Mr. Kasai did not give any indication of this to those around him and continued to work without hesitation.

 In April, he continued to come to JR Tokai's Tokyo headquarters every day, carrying oxygen-support equipment, and gave his subordinates a loud pep talk. He devoted particular time to the Linear Central Shinkansen project.

 He would call up those in charge of the project and tell them to "get your act together" and "aim for an early opening of the line in Japan in order to realize the export of the line to the United States. This was a sign of his persistence.

 The linear rail system: the biggest and most difficult project for Mr. Kasai.

 In 1987, when JR Tokai was established, Mr. Kasai formulated 15 projects for JR Tokai to work on. Of these projects, the Tokaido Shinkansen line reached a speed of 270 km/h (1992), the development of JR Central Towers at Nagoya Station (2000), and the opening of Shinagawa Station on the Shinkansen line (2003) were realized one after another, but the only project whose completion was not in sight was the linear line.

 In his later years, the Linear Line project, which could be considered Mr. Kasai's crowning achievement, faced strong headwinds. In the past, there had been doubts about its profitability. The decline in passenger traffic following the spread of the new coronavirus and the soaring cost of construction materials were casting a shadow over the linear line.

Translated from Japanese. Full article: https://diamond.jp/articles/-/314195 Accessed: 2022-12-12
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Parrahub1
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Re: [JP] Yoshiyuki Kasai, Central Japan Railway, passes away at 81

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There is a huge potential for the SC maglev to be exported around the world particularly where it can leapfrog the last century HSR but it must be economically viable with an overnight container train to reduce the daytime fares below planes ortherwise the whole world will be stuck with trucks and planes.

If the naysayers who want to want this stopped realise this then they may allow it to happen for the future generations of Japanese.

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