Mon, Dec 04, 2006 page2

• Analysis: THSRC challenges grow

  CHALLENGING TASK The nation's bullet train must operate without any accidents for a month despite losing NT$60 million each day before it is inaugurated

  • By Shelley Shan / STAFF REPORTER
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  To the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC), the decision made on Tuesday night by the inspectors committee from the Ministry of Transportation and Communica-tions, which gave only a conditional passing grade to the new system, was a huge blow.

  Not only was the company forced to postpone the inauguration ceremony originally scheduled for next month, but it must also bear an operational loss of NT$60 million (US$1.9 million) each day that it is not opened for public use.

  More importantly, the inspectors required the company to accomplish the challenging task of operating for at least a month without significant accidents.

  The committee's decision was made after a series of minor accidents occurred during test runs, putting the safety and reliability of the train system in question.

  Cheng Min-chang (鄭銘彰), chairman of Taiwan's Railway Culture Society, has been closely monitoring the development of the new rail system over the years. He suggested in an interview with the Taipei Times that THSRC's decision to use a system incorporating features from both the European High Speed Rail system and Japan's Shinkansen system made safety problems inevitable.

  "The company believed that they were creating, theoretically speaking, the `best system in the world, or what the company referred to as the best mix,'" Cheng said. "The combination was indeed unique, but the question is: who is eligible to certify its safety?"

  Cheng said that Tanaka Masahiro, former vice president of Japan Railway Co, Tokei, which was also one of the contractors employed by the Taiwan High Speed Rail, had identified in a Japanese railway journal 26 major differences between the Taiwan system and the Shinkansen in Japan.

  These differences included the design of the railway tracks, the signaling system and the communication methods among personnel.

  And since the high speed rail in Taiwan will operate on a single track with two-way traffic, the traffic signaling system must also be extremely reliable.

  Based on these differences, Tanaka indicated in the article that the system in Taiwan requires "a large amount of testing" to ensure its safety.

  The "best mix" sought by THSRC has instead turned out to a bad mix, according to Cheng.

  He said he "laughed his head off" when he discovered that a test-run accident that occurred two weeks ago in Kaohsiung was caused by a derailer, a device that was installed on the railway tracks long ago when a large part of railway systems had to be operated manually.

  "It [the derailer] is an old device that is now rarely used in Europe and even by the Taiwan Railway Administration," Cheng said.

  "The [railway's] design apparently has mixed in things that should not have been installed in the first place," he said.

  While Cheng blamed the government's failure to actively examine the faults in the system, he also criticized its emphasis on receiving the certification of a European agency, because European and Japanese safety requirements and operational philosophies differ widely.

  Safety concerns also center on the fact that because the trains must be operated by qualified overseas drivers, all communications between the system's employees must take place in English.

  While the company has recruited Ou Chin-der (歐晉德) as well as other executives and employees who were involved in the construction and operational planning of the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, Cheng urged the company to quickly train qualified local drivers to operate the high speed trains.

  "Operating a MRT train is different from operating a high speed rail because the latter requires much more training," Cheng said.

  Cheng added that because rail transportation is an essentially localized operation, train employees should communicate with each other in their native language.

  An example of this is that trains traveling from France to Germany make a stop at the border to allow a German driver to board the train and take over, Cheng said.

  Ou said during a test ride on Wednesday that the company would do everything it could to fulfill every requirement handed down by the inspectors committee.

  He also said that local drivers will replace the foreign drivers in about a year.

  According to Vice Minister of Transportation and Communications Ho Nuan-hsuen (何煖軒), the company will launch drills next month where the trains will be asked to operate at an interval no greater than four minutes.
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