JR Tokai chief denies bidding misconduct impact on maglev project

December 14, 2017

Nagoya- Koei Tsuge, president of Central Japan Railway Co. or JR Tokai, denied Wednesday that the construction of a magnetic levitation ultrahigh-speed train line by the company would be affected by alleged misconduct in bidding related to the project.

"We are not expecting" the alleged misconduct to affect the railway operator's Chuo Shinkansen maglev line project, he told a regular press conference, stressing that construction work will be carried out as scheduled, including in an area where the wrongdoing is suspected.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad is investigating major Japanese general contractor Obayashi Corp. for its suspected misconduct in bidding for the construction of an emergency exit in the central Japan city of Nagoya as part of the maglev Shinkansen project.

JR Tokai will fully cooperate in the investigation, Tsuge said. Meanwhile, Tsuge declined to comment on a JR Tokai employee's suspected leak of information related to the bidding to the Obayashi side, saying that the prosecutors' probe is under way.

JR Tokai plans to open the Tokyo-Nagoya section of the maglev line in 2027.

Following the discovery earlier this week of a crack on the undercarriage of a car of a Shinkansen bullet train belonging to West Japan Railway Co., or JR West, JR Tokai conducted emergency inspections on 30 undercarriages that were manufactured in the same year by the same manufacturer.

The examination found no abnormalities in the undercarriages.

The company plans to complete within Thursday checks for some 4,300 undercarriages of all of its Shinkansen train cars. Jiji Press