High-speed rail set to begin speed tests next week

Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp will begin speed tests of the high-speed rail next week, hoping it can start operating in October as scheduled, the company said yesterday.

"We will gradually raise the speed from 120 kilometers per hour [kph] to 315 kph," said Ted Chia (賈先德), assistant vice president of the press office of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵).

"The transport ministry has asked us to announce the date of the launch of the high-speed rail by mid-September. Our goal is to launch it at the end of October as scheduled," he said.

Chia said construction is ahead of schedule.

"Construction of the rail and stations has been completed 95 percent, but the core system is a little behind schedule," he said.

The 345km railway will link Taipei and Kaohsiung. It had been scheduled to start running on Dec. 31.

The Japanese-built high-speed train will have a maximum operation speed of 300kph, although its speed can hit 315kph.

Taiwan Shinkensen Corp (TSC, 台灣新幹線), a consortium led by Japan's Shinkansen group which built Japan's Shinkansen bullet train, is in charge of building the rail system.

THSRC has ordered 30 sets of the 700T rail cars from Japan and has taken delivery of 20 sets. Each set consists of 12 carriages seating a total of 986 passengers.