TIMED TO THE SECOND.

It's not enough, in Japan, to post departure times to the nearest minute (e.g. the 5.04 Elburn 400.)  "Operator ‘deeply’ sorry for inconvenience to passengers after the 9.44.40am Tsukuba Express pulled away at 9.44.20am."  But when the trains run on Chicago streetcar headways of years ago, the only inconvenience might be to a few passengers having to stand further along the line.  "Passengers who might have made the train had it left on time in fact suffered little inconvenience: the next one arrived just four minutes later."

There's no word in the story of whether the conductor and motormen were called on the carpet for violating Rule Five.  A train has no authority to leave a station before its scheduled leaving time.