Two antique train carriages built exclusively for leaders will go on display in northern Taiwan on June 7 to celebrate the Taiwan Railway Administration’s (TRA) 125th anniversary, officials said yesterday.
The carriages have gained fame among train aficionados because only heads of state or top officials had the privilege of riding in them, a TRA official surnamed Lin (林) said.
“In a sense, these trains were like imperial palaces on the move,” Lin said, with the carriages serving only Japanese occupiers and a former president of the Republic of China.
The carriages, called “railway saloon cars” for their extremely flamboyant interiors, were designed to transport the rulers of the day around Taiwan on inspection tours, Lin said.
The two carriages, built in 1904 and 1912, respectively, were made completely of wood and luxuriously appointed.
The 1912 car, which served Japanese Emperor Hirohito when he traveled to Taiwan in 1923 as a crown prince, was lacquered 10 times to cover the gaps between the teak and cypress panels that formed the carriage, Lin said.
Inside the car, drawings of chrysanthemums — a symbol of Japan’s imperial family — were used generously to highlight the presence of royalty.
That carriage was later taken over by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) for his personal use in traveling up and down western Taiwan.
A third car, built in 1969 of steel and fitted with luxurious trappings, will also be on display.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) took a ride in it in 1991, Lin said.
Maintaining the older train carriages is no easy task because workers must closely monitor conditions in both the cars and the depot where they are stored.
“The depot must be kept at an absolute humidity of 55 percent at all times, to be precise,” Lin said.
The three cars will be open to a maximum of 140 visitors at Cidu Station in Keelung City for one day only.
People interested in seeing them can register by dialing (02) 2456-8990 tomorrow from 8:30am to 4:30pm.
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