Japanese railroad promotes cat to executive post

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Per the Trains Newswire of Friday, January 8th, 2010 - from the same nation that also brought you the ‘‘Hello, Kitty’’ line of merchandise:

KINOKAWA, Japan - The Wakayama Electric Railway Co. has promoted Tama, a 10-year-old female cat, to the post of operating officer for the railroad, the Mainichi Daily News has reported.

I’m kind of surprised that Ms. Mookie wasn’t already all over this first . . . [swg]
To see images and a couple of videos of the honorable feline - she’s a short-hair calico-type, with black markings that just barely touch her eyes and almost make a racoon-like mask - the website for the railway is at:
http://www.wakayama-dentetsu.co.jp/
Since that website is almost entirely in Japanese symbolic script, you may want to access it through a ‘Google’ search, which offers a translation application or function of some kind

2

Purrfect! Chessie and Peake will be amused[:)]

3

Little ‘Spring’ is a very happy cat right now[^]

4

Well…a cat might work out better than some of the monkeys we’ve got running the bailout outfits…

5

A dog was elected to Mayor of the small town of Rabbit Hash, KY several years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_Hash,_Kentucky

6

And still, nobody suggests a Mookie connection to this story. I’m shocked.

7

Sorry, Chuck - already done - see the 3rd paragraph of my Original Post above.

8

operating officer? I thought cats were better suited for HR dept. ( Dilbert reference- you either get it, or you don’t [;)] )

9

I asked a friend with an interest in Japanese culture and a good command of the language to take a look at the website. Apparently the story to this is as follows:

The manager of the railway company in that area felt that an unmanned station
seemed desolate, so 3 years ago they “hired” a cat whose owner lived nearby to
be the station master.

Originally it was done on a whim, but it seems to have brought a lot of
tourists, so they are keen on continuing to employ “Super Station Master Tama”

10

“You can’t spell ‘who cares’ without HR” - Catbert, Evil Director of HR

At least they did not hire Toonces to head the operating department (or worse, operate an actual train).

11

I suppose if a cat can be called to jury duty back on the East Coast (and NOT excused by the Jury Commissioner, even though the owner has explained that it’s a house pet), a cat can certainly become an OP on a railroad.

Spooky and Uff-Dah are extremely amused. “Told’ja so, Daddy!”

Tom [:-^]

12

Check this one out:

http://www.wakayama-dentetsu.co.jp/president/090430.html

I can’t read the writing, but I think the picture halfway down the page says it all.

13

Is “Tama” Japanese for Chessie?