The completion of the Shanli Tunnel (山里隧道), scheduled for the end of this year, will pave the way for electrification of the entire Eastern Line and direct trains all the way to Taitung, the Railway Reconstruction Bureau said yesterday.
The 5.3km tunnel between Hualien and Taitung is the longest on the modified route.
At present, passengers traveling from Taipei to Taitung must switch to a diesel-powered train at Hualien halfway through their journey.
Photo: Wang Hsiu-ting, Taipei Times
The bureau hosted a ceremony yesterday celebrating the completion of the tunnel drilling. Workers operating an excavator broke through the rock separating the north and south ends of the tunnel.
Bureau Director-General Jack Hsu (許俊逸) said construction of the tunnel was initially scheduled to be completed by June next year.
Completion ahead of schedule was even more remarkable as construction was interrupted six times in its initial stage because of typhoons and heavy rain, the bureau said.
However, with the drilling completed, workers can now begin laying the tracks and installing the electrical equipment, which could be completed by the end of this year, Hsu said.
“The Shanli Tunnel is the most crucial part of the project [to electrify the Hualien-Taitung line],” Hsu said, adding that the drilling took about two years.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said the ministry was confident the 155km-long electrified Hualien-Taitung line would become operational next year, adding that the new route would reduce the travel time from Taipei to Taitung to about three-and-a-half hours from about five-and-a-half hours.
The ministry’s next project is the South-Link Line connecting Taitung with Greater Kaohsiung, which has yet to be electrified, Mao said.
Work on the project could begin next year, he said.
Mao said the bureau had also started planning the construction of a direct railway route between Taipei and Yilan, which would depart from Nangang Railway Station in Taipei and go to Jiaosi Township (礁溪), Yilan County.
“If the Taipei-Yilan direct line is complete, it could further decrease travel time between Taipei and Taitung to three hours if the train only stops in Yilan and Hualien,” he said. “And when the South-Link Line is electrified, people from the West Coast will be able to take the high-speed rail and switch to the South-Link Line to travel to Taitung, which would also take about three hours. So whether you went along the east coast or the west coast, it would only take about three hours to arrive in Taitung.”
Despite improvements in the railway service, Mao said the ministry still needed to address several issues before it could truly improve transportation along the east coast.
“We need to consider how to properly increase train services during holidays, particularly when there are large events, like the [Taiwan International] Hot Air Balloon Festival [in Taitung County],” he said. “With an increase in train services, we might run short of train carriages and conductors as well.”
Mao suggested that airlines could have additional flights during peak periods.
Apart from the Shanli Tunnel, the Hualien-Taitung line has three further constructionally challenging tunnels on its modified route, including the Guangfu (光復), Zihciang (自強) and Sikou (溪口) tunnels.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the