Tokyo Snow
January 23rd, 2008
Finally… the first snow of the season in central Tokyo. Came late this year. Still, it looks like more of a dusting than anything else. To even photograph it, I had to settle for catching snowflakes with my flash; none of the snow is staying frozen on the ground, not yet at least. And though it’s been snowing for about an hour at least, I can still see dry spots on rooftops.
Even so, I betcha some train lines in the city get stopped because of it. Tokyo does not respond well to snow.
In the case of trains, there is a reason not to run them as snow first falls. After one train melts the snow on the tracks by passing over it, the water will re-freeze as ice and there will be no friction on the track for a 2nd train to slow itself with. Steel on ice is kind of akin to floating above the track, so the brakes don’t do much at that point.