The main rail route circumnavigating Taiwan would be fully electrified once the South Link Line upgrade is completed this year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Railway Bureau said on Tuesday last week.
The South Link Line is about 98.2km long and the work to electrify the line was challenging, as it had to be done after trains stopped running at midnight each day, the bureau said.
Moreover, a section between Duoliang (多良) and Longsi (瀧溪) in Taitung’s Taimali Township (太麻里) had to be moved because there was insufficient headroom in the tunnels to add electrification infrastructure, it said.
Photo provided by the Taiwan Railways Administration
As most of the South Link Line is in remote areas, most of the materials, machines and personnel had to be delivered via rail, the bureau said.
The section between Chaochou Township (潮州) and Fangliao Township (枋寮) in Pingtung County has had its electrification completed and the upgraded line has been in use since December last year, it said.
That left the section between Fangliao and Jhihben (知本) Station in Taitung as the only one in the round-Taiwan rail system yet to be electrified, it said.
Once the South Link Line is fully electrified, Taroko Express and Puyuma Express services can operate on the line, providing eastbound travelers a fast, safe, scenic, comfortable and energy-efficient rail service, the bureau said.
This would help boost the east coast’s tourism industry, it added.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS