The National Railway Museum is to partially open to the public on July 31 after nine years of restoration work at the historical site formerly known as the Taipei Railway Workshop, allowing visitors to revisit an important period in Taiwan’s railway history.
The areas to be opened to the public include a diesel workshop, a technician training institute, a materials testing institute, an assembly hall, a bathhouse, and a children’s area with trains built using toy blocks, the Ministry of Culture (MOC) said yesterday.
In addition, a 335-meter passageway that bisects the complex in Taipei’s Songshan District will also be available for public use, acting as a footpath linking Civic Boulevard and Keelung Road, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Culture
This will improve pedestrian access, enhance neighborhood connectivity, and offer visitors a close-up view of the site’s historic architecture and skyline of industrial rooftops, it said.
People will be able to visit three permanent and three special exhibitions at the museum, covering topics from locomotives, the diesel factory, the bathhouse to Taiwan’s railway history and culture, and the life of late railway photographer Ku Jen-jung (古仁榮).
The MOC said Taipei Railway Workshop was relocated from the Beimen area to its current site and completed in 1935, where it served for decades as Taiwan’s hub for train maintenance, assembly and repair.
After the workshop was relocated to the Fugang Vehicle Depot in 2012, public advocacy led to the entire 17-hectare site being declared a national historic site in 2015.
In December 2016, the Cabinet approved a plan to transform the workshop into a museum, and by 2019, restoration work had begun, and a museum preparatory office was established.
The project adopted a phased approach: full-area preparation, sectional restoration and phased public openings.
An exhibition demonstrating the rejuvenation of the indigenous Kuskus Village in Pingtung County’s Mudan Township (牡丹) opened at the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency’s conservation station in Taipei on Thursday. Agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) said they have been promoting the use and development of forestry resources to local indigenous residents for eight years to drive regional revitalization. While modern conservation approaches mostly stem from western scientific research, eco-friendly knowledge and skills passed down through generations of indigenous people, who have lived in Taiwan for centuries, could be more suitable for the environment, he said. The agency’s Pingtung branch Director-General Yang Jui-fen (楊瑞芬)
Traffic controls are to be in place in Taipei starting tonight, police said, as rallies supporting recall efforts targeting the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers as well as a rally organized by the KMT opposing the recall campaigns are to take place tomorrow. Traffic controls are to be in place on City Hall Road starting from 10pm tonight and on Jinan Road Section 1 starting from 8am tomorrow, police said. Recall campaign groups in Taipei and New Taipei advocating for the recall of KMT legislators, along with the Safeguard Taiwan, Anti-Communist Alliance (反共護台聯盟), have previously announced plans for motorcycle parades and public
A tropical depression near the northwestern Philippines is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Danas by early tomorrow, becoming the fourth tropical storm of the season, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). As of 8am today, the system was located approximately 370 kilometers southwest of Taiwan's southern tip, Cape Eluanbi, and has developed a more organized structure, forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The storm is currently moving slowly toward the Taiwan Strait in an east-northeast direction and may trigger a sea warning if it reaches tropical storm strength tomorrow morning. The system is expected to shift direction later tomorrow toward the north
‘ON THE RIGHT TRACK’: US analysts praised the ‘less scripted’ drills as strengthening defenses and resilience, as confusion and spontaneity are common in actual warfare This month’s annual Han Kuang military exercises are to feature six types of “gray zone” tactics used by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the aim of weakening their effectiveness, Chief of the General Staff Admiral Mei Chia-shu (梅家樹) told the military yesterday. The 41st Han Kuang drills, scheduled from Wednesday next week through July 18, would simulate a Chinese blockade and invasion, with President William Lai (賴清德) on Tuesday saying that Taiwan is already in a “war without gun smoke.” In a speech broadcast to officers and soldiers yesterday, Mei said that the six types of harassment are: legal warfare,