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TRA vows early replacement of railway tracks

To ensure the safe operation of tilting trains, the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) will replace the railway tracks on some of the sections along the Northern Line (北迴鐵路) at an early date, a senior official at the railway operator said yesterday.

"We will reduce the life cycle of railway tracks that are placed along the curves by five to 10 years," TRA deputy director-general Huang Ming-ren (黃民仁) said.

TRA currently replaces the railway tracks laid in a straight line every 30 years, whereas the tracks built along the curves will be replaced every 20 years.

The announcement came in the wake of a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News questioning the safety of TRA's tilting trains as test run records showed that the derailment coefficient in some of the railway sections exceeded the normal value.

Huang said that there is a total of 500 curves along the Shulin (樹林) to Hualien route.

So far, engineers have identified four sections that have registered higher than the standard value coefficients when a tilting train operates at maximum speed.

The TRA is dealing with the issue by setting more stringent standards on railway track replacement, Huang said.

The administration's contract with the Japanese supplier stipulates that the tilting trains must complete at least 60 successful tests within 80 working days.

All the tilting trains have now been formed into three groups. Test runs on the first group are scheduled to be completed by the end of this month, and those on the other two groups are expected to be completed by next month.

Huang said that the trains would only start operations when all the safety issues have been addressed.

Based on the testing schedule, Huang said it was unlikely that the trains would be ready for service on Tomb-Sweeping Day on April 5.
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