Traveling across the nation on a fully electrified rail system is close to becoming reality, as the last link of the network — the south-link railway electrification project — is to enter its most crucial stage soon, transportation officials said yesterday.
“The project will undergo a huge jump,” Railway Reconstruction Bureau Secretary-General Wen Tai-hsin (溫代欣) said.
Wen said the bureau is to start installing cables inside the 42 tunnels that cover 40.8km of the 123.4km rail section, which connects Taitung County and Pingtung County.
From Sept. 6 this year to June 30, 2019, working hours on the south-link project are to increase from five to 10 hours at a time during certain periods, to take into account the tunnel work, he said.
Previous work has focused on getting the basic infrastructure ready, including track upgrades and reinforcement of surrounding slopeland, the bureau said.
As a result of the increased workload, services between 7pm and midnight on the link are to be suspended from Mondays to Thursdays, as well as on Saturdays, the bureau said.
However, services during the peak July-to-August are to remain unchanged.
Passengers can take shuttle buses at a 20 percent discount during the affected periods, it said.
Commercial operation of the fully electrified train network is expected to commence in 2020 upon completion of the south-link project, and the fastest train from Taipei to Taitung will take only three-and-a-half hours either via the west coast or the east coast, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said.
This is expected to make travel to and from eastern Taiwan more convenient, as train rides from Taipei to Taitung currently take five to seven hours.
The nation began to electrify its rail system in the 1970s, with the first project completed in 1979 on the section between Keelung and Kaohsiung along the west coast.
The second project was completed in 2000 on the section between Keelung and Yilan County, followed by the north-link line between Yilan and Hualien County in 2003.
The Hualien-Taitung section, which launched its electric train service in 2014, is the most recent to complete electrification.
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