The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday urged the Ministry of Culture to quickly appropriate funding to maintain and preserve the Taipei Railway Workshop (台北機廠), which was designated a historical site by the ministry in April.
The request by the TRA’s asset revitalization committee follows a meeting yesterday to discuss public requests for easier access to the maintenance depot, which was built during the Japanese colonial era.
Following its designation, the TRA announced rules limiting access to the site to the following groups: government workers entering the workshop for business purposes; individuals from public or private universities or research institutions visiting it for teaching or research purposes; and experts from private or public museums visiting to research, preserve or promote the workshop.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Visitors are also required to file applications to visit at least 30 days in advance, with the number of visitors capped at 40 per allotted period.
The regulations have riled some railway enthusiasts, who said that more people should be allowed to visit the historical site and that applications to visit should be dropped.
However, TRA Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉), who presided over the meeting, said that regulations governing tours around the workshop are to remain unchanged.
Chou added that any proposed changes to the rules would have to be made after the ministry takes over management of the site.
Tour guides for the workshop must be trained by professionals, he said, adding that the ministry should form an ad hoc team to turn the workshop into a railway museum.
“The ministry should also allocate a budget to restore and preserve the workshop’s facilities. This is the only way we can ensure that this site can continue to exist,” he said.
Some committee members expressed concern over the preservation of workshop’s machinery, much of which has become rusty and require maintenance.
However, they questioned if the TRA, as the temporary custodian, can do much to help preserve these assets, since the workshop has been designated a historical site and the items cannot be moved around easily.
They said the ministry should quickly take over management of the workshop.
Committee member Chen Shu-hui (陳淑慧) said the workshop is an industrial heritage, like the vast industrial landscape in the Ruhr District in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state.
“Apart from the safety issue, one has to make sure that the historical site is ready to be seen and to tell its stories,” Chen said. “I would have reservations if the TRA decides to open the workshop for more people to visit.”
Prior to yesterday’s meeting, committee members and reporters were given a brief tour of the workshop and its land, which covers about 17 hectares.
The Taipei Times observed that while the TRA had managed to keep most of the buildings and machineries used to build or maintain trains in the past, the workshop falls short as a historical site that is open to the public.
In some factories, tools or parts of trains were scattered on the floor and could be easily taken away by visitors. People visiting the site would have difficulty navigating it by themselves because of a lack of signs to guide them. There were also no labels to inform visitors about the machines’ functions or what they are used for.
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