The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) is planning to release a new train schedule in May that would cut travel time to several key destinations around the country.
When the new schedule takes effect, the average travel time for commuter trains between Taipei and Keelung is expected to be shortened by three to five minutes. Currently, a train departing from Taipei arrives in Keelung in 49.8 minutes on average.
Longer-distance travelers would benefit from even speedier services. Half of the express trains from Taipei to Taitung are expected to make the trip within an average of five hours. At present, it takes about seven hours to arrive in Taitung on the TRA’s Chukuang Express and five-and-a-half hours via Tzuchiang Express. The TRA is also testing if it could further speed up the express train service to make the trip in four hours and 12 minutes.
Since about 400 trains will be affected by the changes, the TRA said it would first post the adjusted train schedule on the Web site next week and start taking suggestions from the public.
The TRA said it would consider the public’s suggestions and make some minor adjustments before implementing the final plan. TRA director general Frank Fan (范植谷) said that aside from cutting travel time, the TRA would also increase train services to several stations not covered by the high-speed rail service, including Miaoli, Fengyuan (豐原), Doliu (斗六) and Hsinying (新營).
Because the train service between Hualien and Taitung has yet to be electrified, the TRA is planning to increase the number of diesel-powered trains operating between Hualien and Taitung and on the South Link (南迴鐵路).
In related news, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) said yesterday that passengers who purchase tickets worth more than NT$500 using their consumer vouchers can get half-price coupons.
The THSRC will only issue 100,000 half-price coupons. Those coupons can be used to purchase an economy-class ticket from Taipei to Kaohsiung for only NT$745.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift