Taiwan's high-speed train smoothes the rails

May 27, 2007, 7:59 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's high-speed train, after a bumpy start with almost daily technical trouble, is now running smoothly and will receive its five millionth passenger this week, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) said on Sunday.

The authority said the system had carried 4.82 million passengers by last week, and officials planned to reward the five millionth passenger with a model bullet train and 10 business-class tickets.

Locally trained drives are joining the initial fleet of foreign drivers, and the railway plans to increase daily round-trip service from 25 to 31 train runs, THSRC said.

The Taiwan high-speed rail was built with Japanese technology and uses train carriages made by Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It was built to ease traffic on the south-north expressway.

The project was the first time that Japan, which invented bullet train in 1964, has exported its high-speed rail technology.

Traveling at maximum 335-kilometres per hour, the Taiwan high-speed rail cuts the train ride from Taiwan's capital Taipei in the north to port city Kaohsiung in the south from five hours to 90 minutes.

The high-speed rail has hurt the business of Taiwan's domestic air passenger service by about 40 per cent, forcing airlines to cancel some domestic routes or cut back on flights.