December 30, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 01,1430

TOKYO: New Year travel plans were thrown out for nearly 140,000 people on Monday after a computer glitch disrupted more than 250 of Japan’s bullet trains, the operator said.

East Japan Railway Co. halted five “Shinkansen” bullet train lines in northeastern Japan for three hours from the early morning, a company official said.

The trouble came a day after heavy snow and strong winds separately forced the company to suspend 35 bullet train services, also in eastern and northern Japan, affecting more than 30,000 passengers.

The glitch occurred after railway officials worked all night to input data into the company’s computer system in order to reschedule trains. “We are investigating whether there was a problem with the system itself or the way in which we made the input,” the official said.

A total of 112 trains were cancelled and 146 others were delayed, affecting 137,000 passengers, the company said. Travellers were forced onto later trains that became crowded as a result, witnesses said. There were long queues of people late into the afternoon at Tokyo Station, waiting to change their reservations or buy tickets.—AFP