the railway’s revival hasn’t solely been due to the cats

May 24, 2019 10:58 AM

On a bright May morning at Japan’s Idakiso train station, a small cat basked in the sun as her photo was taken by a group of tourists before getting a tummy tickle from a toddler. While the white, tan and black kitten purred and meowed in the arms of a visitor, one of the station workers looked on with a grin, interjecting only to gently reposition the cat’s brimmed conductor hat whenever it threatened to slip over her eyes. “Having her around the station makes everyone happy. I sometimes forget that she is my boss. previously
posted by ChuraChura (12 comments total)

“By the time Tama passed away in 2015, she was 16 years old and had appeared in prominent TV shows, magazines and newspapers across Japan. Thousands of people attended her funeral at the station, leaving piles of flower bouquets and cans of tuna outside. The ‘Honourable Eternal Station Master’, as she is now called, was then memorialised with a phone box-sized shrine on Kishi’s platform, and in the Japanese Shinto religious tradition, she was elevated to the status of a goddess of the Wakayama Electric Railway.“


I may have to rethink my agnosticism...
posted by darkstar at 11:19 AM on May 24, 2019 [20 favorites]

I named my conductor cat in Neko Atsume “Tama.” What else?

Yes, I still play Neko Atsume; I would feel bad if I didn’t occasionally give my digital cats food....
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:32 AM on May 24, 2019 [10 favorites]

Meet Yontama, the latest in a line of feline stationmasters that has helped save the Kishigawa railway line in Japan’s Wakayama prefecture, a largely mountainous and rural part of the country famous for temple-studded hillsides and sacred pilgrimage trails.

Bastet's priestesses
posted by hugbucket at 11:41 AM on May 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love Tama. I love her successors. What I'm not so sure that I love is that after Tama's promotion to super station master in 2008, she became "the only female in a managerial position" in the company.
posted by heatherlogan at 11:50 AM on May 24, 2019 [14 favorites]

All cats are gods and goddesses. It pleases me to see Tama and her successors recognized as such.
posted by Hermione Granger at 11:56 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

All cats are gods and goddesses. It pleases me to see Tama and her successors recognized as such.
posted by Hermione Granger at 11:56 AM on May 24 [+] [!]

Crookshanks approves of your attitude.
posted by "mad dan" eccles at 12:27 PM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

This made me so happy, I needed something light to read during lunch. What a wonderful life Tama had, and the conductor hat is just too cute!
posted by honey badger at 1:41 PM on May 24, 2019

Where can I get one of those hats? Asking for a fr.... my boss.
posted by ktkt at 4:47 PM on May 24, 2019 [4 favorites]

So sweet!
posted by doctornemo at 5:28 PM on May 24, 2019

after Tama's promotion to super station master in 2008, she became "the only female in a managerial position" in the company.

The tiny railway company in question has a grand total of 26 employees. Unarguably there's a lot to criticize about gender inequality in Japan, but it seems like there might be more effective places to focus that criticism.
posted by Umami Dearest at 7:18 AM on May 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Now I know how these people got their cats lodged in their railway infrastructure.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:13 AM on May 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

What good kitties!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 11:16 AM on May 25, 2019 [1 favorite]