The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) has resumed full operations of the railway line connecting Hualien and Taitung earlier than expected following the derailment on Saturday of a northbound Chukuang-class train.
The incident at 12:34pm caused six train carriages to derail and disrupted operations in the section between Fuli (富里) and Dongjhu (東竹) in Hualien County.
The administration said high temperatures caused the railway tracks to deform, which could have caused the derailment, adding that the temperature of the affected tracks was recorded at 63?C, higher than the average 60?C temperature the tracks are rated to withstand.
Although the 50 passengers on-board the train sustained no major injuries, the derailment severely damaged 250m of the track, forcing the TRA to remove the steel-made tracks and place 370 pre-stressed concrete sleepers under the tracks.
The TRA estimated that full operation of the damaged section would not resume until 12pm yesterday. However, operations of the southbound train service began at 11:16am and the northbound train service at 11:38am.
TRA statistics showed the derailment affected a total of 53 trains operating over the weekend, and about 7,130 passengers.
The TRA said it expects to finish installing track temperature monitoring devices at 18 locations by the end of the month.
The TRA said that the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and the mass rapid transit (MRT) systems use railway tracks supported by concrete sleepers, which are not deformed by high temperatures.
The TRA uses track ballasts to support sleepers, which cannot completely prevent the deformation of tracks if the rail temperature rises to more than 60?C, the agency added.
Only newly built TRA tracks use concrete sleepers.
However, a lack of funding means the agency cannot switch all tracks — 1,100km — to concrete sleepers, it said.
The TRA said it began installing temperature-monitoring devices in six locations in Taichung and Chiayi two years ago, and they have proven to be effective in lowering operational speeds of trains to 40kph once the rail temperature exceeds 50?C.
The derailment happened after the agency last month decided to expand the installation of the temperature-monitoring devices to 12 more locations.
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