Close to 20,000 passengers on the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) system saw their travel plans delayed for several hours yesterday after an overhead wire at the section between Tanzih (潭仔) and Taichung stations was severed early in the morning.
The incident occurred at 6:33am and regular operations did not resume until 11:48am, resulting in delays for 13 express and 26 commuter trains and reduced services for 10 other commuter trains servicing the line between Taichung’s Fongyuan (豐原) and Changhua City’s Changhua (彰化) stations.
An estimated 19,600 passengers were affected.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
Workers from the Railway Reconstruction Bureau reported that scaffolds at a construction site near Taiyuan (太原) Station in Taichung City collapsed and crushed part of the overhead wire on the southbound track, forcing the TRA to continue two-way traffic using only the north-bound track.
The TRA said it did not have to refund passengers, as delays on express trains did not go beyond one hour.
In related news, the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said two-way traffic at the road sections on Suhua Highway (蘇花公路) that were severely damaged by Typhoon Megi resumed at 4pm yesterday. The nation’s highway authority had initially planned to reopen those sections today.
In a statement, the DGH said Suhua Highway was the only highway connecting Hualien and Taitung counties to other northern regions. Because of the urgency of the project, the DGH worked with contractors to dispatch more machinery and personnel and extended work hours.
The DGH said workers were unable to access the section near landmark 112km because of a 20m-deep roadbed gap. Construction at that section eventually began on Nov. 6, with workers occasionally threatened by rock falls, it said.
In addition to marking traffic lines on the damaged road sections, barriers were placed around the remaining construction sites to ensure the safety of motorists, the DGH said.
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