20 years ago, the Kaohsiung City Government undertook a feasibility study to construct a rapid transit system in Kaohsiung. In 1990, after favorable results from the study and lobbying efforts, approval was granted to establish the Kaohsiung City Mass Rapid Transit Bureau. Disputes in funding between the city government and county government stalled the project and it wasn’t until 1994 that the bureau was officially established. In 1996, the Central government ordered the KMRT to construct the project under a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) method. Three corporations bid for the project and in 2000 it was awarded to Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation (KRTC), made up of China Steel Corporation, Southeast Cement Corporation, RSEA Engineering Corporation, China Development Industrial Bank, and the Industrial Bank of Taiwan. The system comprises 2 lines, the red line and the orange line, covering a total of 42.7km. The red line runs north-south from Gangshan ( å—岡山) to Siaogang (å°æ¸¯) over a distance of 28.3km with 15 underground stations, 1 ground level stations and 8 elevated stations. The orange line, comprising of 13 underground and 1 ground level station, runs 14.4km from Sizhiwan (西åç£) in the west to Daliao (大寮) in the east.
A couple of weeks ago Ashish from Tumbling in Taiwan posted about a recent trip he made to Changhua. In it he mentioned seeing a sign at the train station that said “fan-shape garage” and was wondering what it was. So, with today being a beautiful winters day with clear blue skies, I decided to take a walk down to the fan-shape garage and take a look around.
Dating back to the age of steam, the maintenance garage at Changhua is the only one of its kind in Taiwan. Changhua station used to be an important midway point of the western rail line, and is the southern meeting point of the mountain and coastal lines. The rails radiate out of the garage like spokes and a single turntable is used to position the trains. Today there are three old steam engines located in the garage, and it is also used as a maintenance depot for diesel and electric trains. I was unable to find out any more information about the garage, so I’ll leave you with the pictures.
Another slideshow, this time from the pods I blogged about a couple of days ago. The photos in the slideshow are from both trips I’ve made there, and the music is Wolf by Mister M, used under a Creative Commons license. Enjoy.
Last May I blogged about the abandoned pod development in San-zhr (三èŠ) on the north coast of Taiwan. It has proved to be one of the more popular posts on this site, so last week a friend and I headed out there for a photo shoot. The first time I was there, I stayed outside as the pods are decaying and a little unsafe. I was there alone, so I opted for a safety first approach. This time I ventured inside, as I had someone to rescue me if the need arose (it didn’t). All photos were shot on a Canon 40D with 17-40mm f4L and the interior shots also had a 420ex with softbox attached with an off-camera shoe cord, with the speedlight held above my left shoulder.
Three months ago, I posted a photoessay about Katoli’s World, the now abandoned amusement park destroyed during the 921 earthquake. Continuing my experiments with slideshows and music, I’ve created another video presentation. Enjoy.
