The Taiwan Railways Administration yesterday said that it is monitoring the number of headrest covers on the seats of its Hello Kitty-themed train after more than 300 of them were stolen by passengers during the train’s inaugural run between Taipei and Taitung on Monday.
The administration’s first Taroko Express train featuring the popular cartoon character became an immediate sensation earlier this week. However, the administration found that a large number of the headrest covers on the seats, which have Hello Kitty designs printed on them, went missing after the train’s inaugural journey was completed yesterday evening.
“The covers are available in two different patterns. To replace some of the missing ones, we had also prepared 120 backup covers just in case,” Catering Services Department general manager Liu Chien-liang (劉建良) said. “However, by the end of the day only 168 were left, 328 of them went missing.”
Photo: CNA
Asked why so many of the headrest covers were stolen, Liu said that perhaps the passengers wanted to take one of each design and keep them as souvenirs. The administration did not expect that most of the headrest covers would be taken away, he said.
The estimated loss totaled about NT$16,000, he added.
It was not the first time that Taiwanese travelers were reported to have taken away items on transportation systems or from public places. Passengers on EVA Airways Corp’s (長榮航空) Hello Kitty aircraft, for example, were found to have taken napkins, paper cups, dining utensils and pillow cases featuring Hello Kitty designs. Some passengers even tried to tuck pillows into their carry-on luggage before being asked by flight attendants to take them out.
Liu said that the stolen headrest covers are made of a fabric called Tetron, which can be cleaned and reused.
He said that the administration is considering asking Japan’s Sanrio Co, which owns the exclusive rights to produce and sell products featuring Hello Kitty, to produce headrest covers using non-woven fabric instead.
As the administration plans to use the special Taroko Express train again to observe the 90th anniversary of the launch of the Hualien-Taitung railway line, Liu said that the administration would monitor the headrest covers in each train carriage.
On-board service personnel are to deliver public broadcast messages reminding passengers to maintain the cleanliness of each carriage, he added.
The administration has an inventory of only 1,600 headrest covers, which might not be sufficient, Liu said.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS