By 2027, a second track is to be installed on the railway line connecting Hualien and Taitung counties, the Railway Bureau said yesterday.
Hualien Station is 162km from Taitung County’s Chiben Station, but 112.65km of the distance consists of sections of single track, Eastern Engineering Office deputy director Hsia Heng-ren (夏恒仁) said.
Thirteen curved sections of track with a radius of less than 800m would also be improved, while electric cables, signals and facilities along the route would be upgraded, Hsia said.
Photo courtesy of the TRA
With a single track, trains need to wait at a loop if other trains need to go first, he said, adding that the dual-track system would fix that.
The Taiwan Railways Administration can maintain two-way operations on one of the tracks if there is an incident on the other, he added.
A dual-track system would increase the capacity of the Hualien-Taitung railway line from two to three trains per hour to seven to eight trains per hour, Railway Bureau chief engineer Lu Hsin-hsi (呂新喜) said.
Commuter trains would cut their travel time between Hualien and Taitung by 45 minutes, while Tzuchiang-class express trains would reduce their time by 12 minutes, Lu said.
The Hualien-Taitung railway line was fully electrified by June 2014.
The Executive Yuan approved the dual-track project in April, after it passed an environmental impact assessment in August last year.
Construction on the project, which would cost NT$45.62 billion (US$1.64 billion), is to begin by the end of next year, the bureau said, adding that the second track is expected to become operational by October 2027.
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