The Ministry of Culture yesterday announced its decision to designate the Taipei Railway Workshop as a national cultural heritage site, marking a long-awaited victory for cultural preservation groups.
The decision signaled an abrupt halt to earlier development plans proposed by former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) administration, which originally allocated 57 percent of the 17-hectare site for commercial use.
Cultural Heritage Bureau director-general Shy Gwo-lung (施國隆) yesterday said that the compound would be preserved in its entirety, while the historic workshop itself would be renovated to house a railway museum.
Photo: Yu Pei-ju, Taipei Times
Constructed in the 1930s during Japanese colonial rule, the Taipei Railway Workshop was known as the “hospital” for the nation’s trains, and considered the most important railway maintenance depot in Taiwan.
The compound features a diverse range of architecture, including an engine room and a Japanese-style bath house, as well as lush vegetation.
Announced in September last year, original plans for the site provoked a prolonged campaign spearheaded by cultural preservation groups and railway enthusiasts, who said that the compound should be preserved in its entirety to preserve knowledge of the maintenance process.
Although several buildings within the compound were designated as historical monuments through successive campaigns in 2000, 2012 and 2013, the compound as a whole lacked adequate protection, the activists said.
“The importance of the Taipei Railway Workshop lies not only in its architecture, but also in its role as an assembly line for industrial production and its role within the context of an industrial landscape,” activist Huang Li-ping (黃立品) said.
Proposed commercial uses for the compound also stoked anger among nearby residents, who said that local infrastructure would be inadequate to accommodate a massive influx of tourists and shoppers to the area following the construction of the Songshan Cultural Park and the Farglory Dome project nearby.
Earlier yesterday morning, members of the Taipei Railway Workshop Heritage Conservation Union congregated outside the site, demanding that authorities help to protect the compound and increase public participation in future plans.
In a symbolic gesture to offer their blessing to the beleaguered site, dozens of activists and their supporters tied yellow ribbons to the fences that surround the compound.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), which would prefer to develop the site to fulfill its needs, was not happy about the decision.
TRA Deputy Director-General Chung Ching-da (鐘清達) said that the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法) holds the owner of the property responsible for managing and maintaining a historical site, adding that the managing and maintenance of a historical site was not the railway operator’s forte.
Nor did the administration have the manpower and funding to preserve the historical site, he said.
“They only know how to give birth to the child, but they are not raising it themselves,” he said of the activists, adding that different agencies should share the burden of preserving the historical site in a more reasonable and responsible manner.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at