The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday said it would seek restitution from whoever painted graffiti on a EMU3000 train parked at its train depot in New Taipei City on Saturday night, adding that the vandal could face up to seven years in prison for disrupting railway operations.
It was the first time that a new train of the nation’s largest transportation agency has been vandalized with graffiti.
The train is one of 50 EMU3000 trains procured in 2019 to replace some of the TRA’s old intercity fleet. The procurement contract cost NT$44.29 billion (US$1.39 billion).
Photo courtesy of a reader
The EMU3000 train was also known as the “most beautiful of the Tzu-chiang trains.” The Tzu-chiang class is the TRA’s highest class of express passenger train.
The agency said it had reported the case to the Railway Police Bureau and would quickly restore the body of the train after police have gathered evidence.
The TRA would also seek compensation from those who vandalized the train to cover the costs of restoration, as well as financial losses sustained due to service disruptions, the agency said.
“As we were concerned that removing it by ourselves might damage the body paint, we have requested assistance from Hitachi, the manufacturer, in assessing the time and the money needed to clean and restore the exterior of the train, which would take two to three days to complete,” TRA rolling stock department director Cheng Kuo-hsi (鄭國璽) said.
However, the agency yesterday afternoon told reporters that the train resumed operation after workers had removed the graffiti by 2:20pm.
In addition to compensation, the vandals face fines of NT$1,500 to NT$7,500 for contravening the Railway Act (鐵路法) by defacing train coaches, Cheng said.
The Railway Police Bureau’s branch director for New Taipei City’s Shulin District (樹林), Su Chien-wei (蘇建偉), said that TRA workers discovered that the train had been vandalized at 4:50am yesterday and reported the incident to the police.
Under Article 68-2 of the act, those who jeopardize the normal operation of an important railway station, field, facility or equipment by stealing, destroying or other illegal means face imprisonment of one year to seven years, and could also be fined up to NT$10 million, Su said.
The entrance to the TRA’s train depot in Shulin was guarded around the clock, the bureau said, adding that it is investigating whether vandals entered the depot by hiding in the train after passing the terminal station.
Taiwan Railway Union chairman Wang Chieh (王傑) said that the agency should fine the vandals to deter more would-be graffiti artists from targeting trains.
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