Nov 03 (NHK) - East Japan Railway Company is urging passengers to be more careful in train stations to avoid dropping their wireless earphones on railway tracks.
The company known as JR East says it recorded 950 cases of dropped wireless earphones at 78 stations in central Tokyo from July to September.
JR East officials showed reporters on Monday how they recover earphones that have fallen onto the tracks, to demonstrate the difficulty of retrieving the small audio gadgets.
Railway officials tried to pick up an earphone with a grabber tool, but the piece was so small that it became buried in gravel under the track.
They say officials at some stations have used various tools for retrieval, including a hand-made stick with a sticky tape attached, as well as a vacuum cleaner.
They also say that sometimes they have had to walk on the tracks to look for earphones after the last train passed through the stations around midnight.
A senior JR East official says passengers tend to lose earphones when they get on and off the train, or when they adjust their face masks. He asks passengers not to try to search for lost earphones themselves because doing so is dangerous.
Source: ANNnewsCH
