Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) chairman Tony Fan (范志強) yesterday said that the company cannot completely eradicate problems caused by railway switches, adding that it can only enhance the maintenance of the railway switches to reduce the errors.
Fan faced lawmakers at the legislature’s Transportation Committee for the first time since becoming the THSRC chairman in March. Legislators focused on the problems with the railway switches of the high-speed rail system in the question-and-answer session, as errors in the devices often caused train delays.
Statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications showed the high-speed rail system has recorded a total of 202 operational abnormalities since it was launched in 2007.
Sixty of them occurred at the junctions, including the errors reported in the railway switches and signaling system.
Democratic Progressive Party legislators Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) and Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) both said that six abnormalities with the railway switches had occurred this year, even though the company conducted extensive maintenance on the railway switches and replaced some of their parts.
Lee said that three railway switch errors happened since Fan took office, and people are getting impatient with the unreliability of the system.
Tsai asked both Fan and Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) to set specific goals for reducing the railway switch errors, adding that someone should be held accountable if the errors continue to occur after next month.
Neither Yeh nor Fan responded with any specific commitment.
Fan said that the railway switches have to move frequently to handle intensive train deployment.
“It’s impossible to completely stop the operation to replace the railway switches,” Fan said. “We would have to suspend the operation for at least a year to change all the railway switches, which would not be feasible. So far, we do not have any better solution to this problem.”
Fan said that the railway switch manufacturer is scheduled to arrive from Germany this week, seeking to end the errors.
“Railway switches in Europe move less frequently because both the distances between stations and the intervals between trains are longer than those in Taiwan. The nation’s high-speed rail tracks, on average, have a junction every 2.36km, which is why the railway switches have to move more frequently,” Fan said.
A report from the THSRC also indicated that the high-speed rail system in Taiwan used railway switches and junctions produced in Germany because they allow trains to enter the station at an operational speed of between 130kph and 160kph, without having to reduce their speed.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said that if left unfixed, the problems with the railway switches would only get worse after new stations in Miaoli, Changhwa and Yunlin are built, as the distances between stations would be even shorter.
“The railway switches will be like time bombs, and you will never know when one of them will break down again,” he said.
Meanwhile, the committee also passed a motion yesterday asking the high-speed rail operator to present a solution to its financial problems within three months to avoid facing bankruptcy by the end of this year.
Fan said the company planned to reduce costs first and raise capital later. He said the company will also apply to extend the concession period, which will ease the pressure of amortization.
Yeh said the ministry would seek to increase the proportion of shares held by government shareholders.
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