Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp and Hitachi Toshiba Supreme Consortium (HTSC) yesterday signed a second supplementary deed to a procurement contract to build new-generation cabins.
The high-speed rail operator purchased 12 sets of rolling stock from Hitachi Toshiba in May 2023. The two companies then spent nearly two years working on the internal designs of the high-speed train cabins, with the first supplementary deed signed last year.
The second supplementary deed was signed by Taiwan High Speed Rail chairman James Jeng (鄭光遠) and HTSC deputy head of Asia and Japan Takuya Yamakawa at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, with Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) serving as the witness.
Photo: CNA
With the signing of the second supplementary deed, the high-speed rail operator finalized the internal design of the train cabin, allowing HTSC to begin manufacturing the rolling stock.
“That means we have entered the next milestone of rolling stock production,” Jeng said.
“The first batch of the new-generation rolling stock was scheduled to be delivered by the end of next year, but Mr Yamakawa just told me that the delivery could be a few months earlier than scheduled. That would give us more time to test the new trains, making them safer,” he said.
The new trains are scheduled to enter into operation by the second half of 2027, the company said in a statement.
The first and second supplementary deeds helped add a few passenger-friendly facilities and designs to the new train cabins, including upgrading passenger seats to the same specifications of the NS700S Series Shinkansen high-speed trains and installing charging ports at seats. New trains would be equipped with an active shock absorber system.
A noise-reduction device is also to be installed in the passage areas between trains, which can reduce noises and absorb shocks, the company said.
The new train would also have faucets, hooks for clothes and baby seats in nursery rooms, and six spots for passengers in wheelchairs, with devices to secure wheelchairs.
Currently, each train has four spots for wheelchairs.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
RSS