Taipei’s Nangang (南港) high speed railway (HSR) station is scheduled to open in July, which is expected to ease crowds, said the Bureau of High Speed Rail.
The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp yesterday began integrated testing at Nangang Station. During testing, engineers gauge the reliability of the system by running trains between Taipei Main Station and Nangang station.
The company said the distance between the two stations is about 9km, with an estimated travel time of 7 minutes. The train fare for passengers traveling this section is about NT$40.
Nangang Station will serve as the high speed rail network’s terminal station in the north, extending the railway operations to 350km. An adult ticket from Nangang to Zuoying (左營), the terminal station in the south, it is to cost NT$1,530. The ticket for non-reserved seats within the same section will be NT$1,480.
The company estimated that would be able to increase services by about 25 percent after the launch of Nangang Station, as the six railway tracks in the station can help increase the frequency of train deployment. Currently, trains leave from Taipei, which has only four tracks.
The new timetable is scheduled to be submitted to the Bureau of High Speed Rail for approval before June. The company said it has taken longer to launch the Nangang Station because it needs to reset the system, and adjust the timetable and fares.
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