The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) yesterday said that it has budgeted NT$158 million (US$4.68 million) for the repair and restoration of the Tainan Railway Station, with work scheduled to begin in September.
The station was established in 1900, but its main building was not built until 1936. The Ministry of Culture designated the station a national historic site in 1998.
More than 25,000 people pass through the station daily, the TRA said.
Photo: CNA
Repairs are needed because of a water leak in the ceiling of the station lobby, but all restoration and repair work has to following the guidelines in the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法), the agency said.
The restoration project also includes the station staff office, platforms and railway police post, and is scheduled to take three years.
During the Japanese colonial era, the station’s second floor was a railway hotel, the only one in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that the hotel had eight rooms and a restaurant with kitchen.
The second floor has been closed to the public for many years and has been severely damaged by pests.
The agency said it wants to restore the station facilities as much as possible to their 1936 state and reopen the hotel and restaurant.
The TRA has also budgeted NT$24.90 million to fix the Shanjia Station, which the New Taipei City Government has designated an historic site. The work is scheduled to be completed in August.
Three stations along the Neiwan branch line (內灣支線) in Hsinchu County are also being renovated, at a cost of NT$58 million, with work due to be completed by the end of the year. The line was constructed to serve the logging industry.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
RSS