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Meanwhile, Taiwan media and politicians moved on to be outraged about another rail mega-project: Taipei's in-construction rapid airport link, suffering cost overruns and delays too.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Aug 22nd, 2010 at 11:17:30 AM EST
Photo of swing-nose switch found, added.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Aug 22nd, 2010 at 01:39:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
with several major subway projects at both ends of the line (kaohsiung will be much better when the HSR extension goes all the way to the train station, and it seems like every major boulevard in taipei is ripped up down the middle with new subway lines).

if there's two things taiwanese know how to do, it's pour concrete and get outraged about related corruption. at the end of the day, though, it gets done and works well.

by wu ming on Sun Aug 22nd, 2010 at 02:08:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
if there's two things taiwanese know how to do, it's pour concrete and get outraged about related corruption. at the end of the day, though, it gets done and works well.

LOL, well said: that about sums up my diary in two lines :-)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sun Aug 22nd, 2010 at 03:40:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
By the way, can you find something about the current state of affairs with the five extra stations? From what I can find, Taipei-Nangang is in advanced construction; for the three in the middle, only planning seems to have been resumed; while I couldn't find anything about whether the moving of the commuter lines underground in Kaohsiung include the extension of HSR tracks.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Aug 22nd, 2010 at 04:04:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
and they are steadily working away on it. the station building exterior is finished (not sure about the interior), they built a subway extension to connect with the nangang HSR station last fall, and put the regular rail station underground shortly after. it'll be helpful for feeding east coast ridership into the HSR system, as all trains to keelung and the east coast come through nangang. they just built a major bus terminal/subway station on the east side of town for similar reasons, taipei main station is horribly crowded, since everything goes through there.

i don't know much about the state of the three middle stations, unfortunately.

it is my understanding that the HSR will go to kaohsiung train station. i certainly hope that's still the case, it would be loads more convenient than the station in zuoying (which, to be fair, is still fairly well linked to kaohsiung's subway system, which opened just a couple of years ago).

by wu ming on Tue Aug 24th, 2010 at 10:07:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for those details!

it is my understanding that the HSR will go to kaohsiung train station.

My question wasn't clear on this. Every source I found agrees that THSR will reach Kaohsiung main station -- eventually. What I couldn't find out is whether this is part of the currently on-going construction work, or still just a plan that will need more digging.

At any rate, what do you think: with an extended intro, would this diary interest dKos readers?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Aug 25th, 2010 at 01:29:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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