Speeding by a driver who was 80 seconds late caused Japan’s deadliest train accident in four decades, an official enquiry reported today.

Ryujiro Takami ploughed his commuter train into an apartment block, killing 106 of his passengers and injuring 550 others.

The 23-year old driver, who also died in the crash on April 25, failed to apply his brakes as he went into the bend in the town of Amagasaki, near Osaka, at 70mph, despite a maximum speed limit of 44mph.

The report, by a government-appointed investigation committee, stopped short of the conclusion widely reached by the Japanese public: that Mr Takami’s train crashed because of his terror of running a little more than a minute late.

The crash was every railway commuter’s worst nightmare - a packed train which derailed at high speed, hurling its 700 passengers on top of one another, and leaving them trapped, crushed and bleeding under the buckled carriages. It provoked an anguished examination of the price which Japan may be paying for the world famous efficiency of its train network.

After the crash, it emerged that Mr Takami’s employers, Japan Railways West, imposes humiliating penalties on drivers for lateness in its thirst for punctuality and profits.

Drivers are forced to undergo "re-education" during which they have their pay docked and are banned from drinking tea, talking to one another, or going to the toilet without permission.

According to the JR West’s trade union, several company employees have killed themselves after re-education.

The company was also criticised for not installing an Automatic Train Stop (ATS) system on the Fukuchiyama Line, where the Amagasaki tragedy occurred.

The report revealed that on JR West lines where an ATS was in use, 46 trains were automatically stopped last year, compared to none on the lines owned by the company’s competitors in other parts of Japan.

The report was an interim document submitted to the transport ministry by the Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission. The final version is expected in April 2007.

JR West has so far paid out compensation to only a small number of families of the crash’s victims. Bereaved relatives were scathing about the report.

"We do not accept this document," said 63-year old Yasaichi Asano, whose wife and younger sister both died in the crash. "Without knowing why our families died, our suffering continues. We want to know the reason so as to comfort the spirits of our relatives. That’s why we need to know the truth."

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