The Formosan Railroad Bento Festival has been postponed to November due to a serious outbreak of COVID-19, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said yesterday.
The railway agency, which is known for its boxed meals, has been holding the festival since 2015, allowing visitors to taste various meals produced by railway operators, mainly in Taiwan and Japan.
Last year, the annual festival was canceled after the Central Epidemic Command Center raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 following a surge in local cases.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
“The festival this year was supposed to take place from Friday to Monday next week, but because the number of locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 remains high, the festival will be postponed to Nov. 11 to Nov. 14,” TRA Partnerships Center official Chen Wen-chuan (陳文川) said.
This year, the festival is to feature three main aspects: railroad boxed meals, railway travel and railway culture, Chen said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) said that, as soon as the COVID-19 outbreak eases, the TRA should promptly resume some of the train services between Keelung and Taipei that were canceled due to a shortage of train drivers.
Tsai said he had received a complaint from a TRA driver, who said that drivers who had contracted COVID-19 were not allowed to rest because of a driver shortage.
The agency should stop the practice, which shows a disregard for the health of drivers and passengers, he said.
“The agency canceled some of the train services between Keelung and Taipei because it is short of drivers, but train passengers have dramatically decreased amid the pandemic,” Tsai said.
Most of the canceled train services from Keelung to Taipei are between 2pm and 4pm daily, he said, adding that railway commuters have been told that they can transfer to the railway service to the east coast at Badu (八堵) ]or Cidu (七堵 ) stations, or take the intercity express bus service to downtown Taipei.
Once the epidemic eases, the agency should restore canceled train services first, he said.
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