A new Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train designed to promote ecological conservation was launched yesterday morning at Nangang Railway Station in Taipei.
The second Satoyama Animal Train (里山動物列車) is twice as long as the first, which ran last year as part of a partnership with the Forestry Bureau.
The trains have been named after the Satoyama Initiative, which promotes conservation and sustainable use to preserve biodiversity. Satoyama is a Japanese term that means the area between mountains and arable land.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
Given the positive feedback on last year’s train, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) asked the TRA to work with the bureau to create a new animal-themed train for this year, the TRA said.
The locomotives for the new train feature either a leopard cat or a ring-neck pheasant, while the doors and the ceilings of the eight passenger cars are decorated with animals from the nation’s four ecosystems: secondary forests, rivers and creeks, wetlands and rice paddies, and rural fields and villages, it said.
Each car has an LCD monitor that will show videos about Taiwan’s wildlife, such as crested honey buzzards and crab-eating mongooses, the agency said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
However, the second car of the train is different from the others, as it is a natural ecosystem itself, with the floor painted with rice paddies, while figurines in the form of leopard cats, African grass owls and other woodland creatures are on the seats, and “birds” perch on the straphanger rails, the agency said.
The exterior of the new train is painted with creatures such as Pancala snails, Chinese striped-necked turtles and woodpeckers, the TRA said.
Fifty-five protected wildlife species inhabit the environment below 1,000m above sea level, and their habitats have become fragmented because of human activity, Forestry Bureau Director Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said.
The train was designed to express the hope that animals could freely move around in their habitats, he said.
TRA Director-General Chang Cheng-yuan (張政源) said the agency would soon launch trains featuring Taiwanese Aborigine pictures and motifs, as well as tourist attractions along the Highway No. 3.
Following yesterday’s short pilot run, the new Satoyama Animal Train officially becomes part of the TRA’s commuter train fleet today.
It will be used on services between the Keelung and Chiayi stations, and between the Houli and Chaozhou stations, the agency said.
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