The last carriage of the DR2652-model train is scheduled to be handed over to the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) for preservation today, the railway service said yesterday.
The diesel DR2652, also known as the “zippy train,” was imported from Japan in 1954. With its body painted blue, the train operated at a speed of 105kph, the fastest train service at that time. It reduced travel time between Taipei to Kaohsiung to about five hours.
According to TRA officials, the “zippy train” was discharged from active duty in 1978 after electric Tzuchiang-class trains were introduced.
The administration said that one of the train’s carriages was purchased by Wang Neng-hung (王能宏), chairman of Wang Zhang Fa Industry.
After Wang bought the train carriage, he placed it next to a McDonald’s restaurant on Jhongshan Road in Changhua City and it was used to host children’s birthday parties.
The TRA said the owner of the property on which the train carriage was parked had decided to take back the property for other uses.
To prevent the carriage from becoming scrap steel, Wang donated it to the TRA, with officials saying they had agreed to restore and preserve it as an important railway cultural heritage asset.
Wang is scheduled to sign the contract with TRA at a ceremony today.
The carriage will be towed to the TRA’s Taipei Railway Workshop for restoration after the ceremony.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai