TRA EMU 900 Train Cars Arrive in Taiwan with TUV Rheinland Providing IV&V Assurance Throughout

TAIPEI, Nov. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Taiwan's first two EMU 900 commuter trains arrived at Hualien Harbor on the morning of October 24, and made their first public appearance at Hualien Railway Station on October 25. The EMU 900 train cars were ordered by the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) from Hyundai Rotem in Korea in May 2018, at a cost of NT$25.3 billion. A total of 52 trains composed of 520 carriages will be delivered within the next two years. This first set of trains will undergo certain testing before going into revenue service.

The first two trains are numbered EMU 901 and EMU 902. Delivery was approved by the TRA after independent verification & validation (IV&V) by TUV Rheinland, which accepted the positive results pertaining to design, factory testing, and relevant documentation. Once the trains were offloaded at Hualien Harbor, after being put on display at the railway station they were hauled to the Hualien Depot for one week of preparation testing. From there they will next go to the Qidu depot for performance testing on the main line. Due to the impact of COVID-19, the factory testing at the Korean factory that was started at the beginning of the year was witnessed by the TUV Rheinland team in Korea. All testing and trial runs in Taiwan are expected to be completed within three months. Once the IV&V report is formally issued completing the verification of all remaining tests, the new trains will be ready to commence passenger services.

Each EMU 900 train consists of 10 carriages to meet capacity, and have 3 pantographs to cope with electrical traction demands. They will thus have the highest number of pantographs among all the fixed-configuration EMUs currently operating in Taiwan. To ensure driver safety in a crossover accident, the driver cabs at either end of the trains are designed as protective cages, while all critical equipment has undergone a series of safety and function verification procedures that ensures the optimal combination of reliability, safety, and operation & maintenance performance.

The new EMUs incorporate such friendly features as the Pink Light Receiver on priority seats. Pregnant women can use the Pink Light Transmitter to trigger the light and remind the occupant to give up their seat. Other passenger service features include self-adjusting cabin lighting, disabled accessible areas, and expanded bicycle storage space. The passenger seats were also designed, developed, and fabricated by a local company and shipped to Korea for installation. Other onboard equipment, such as the pressurized clear water tanks supplying the washrooms, the vacuum toilet tanks, and the peripheral hygiene equipment, were sourced locally as well.

Taiwan is a member of the WTO, which means that localization requirements for train equipment purchasing can no longer be written into train purchasing contracts. Local train equipment makers must now compete in an open market against foreign vendors. The adoption of local products by an original manufacturer represents international recognition of their readiness to enter the international market. International certification is hence essential for products seeking to enter the international market. TUV Rheinland is the first third-party certification body in Taiwan to be accredited for railway systems in accordance with TAF ISO/IEC 17020. It also has a highly capable professional team for provision of local services in a timely manner. A number of indigenous railway products have already been certified in the past, including the Platform Screen Door (PSD) system, Turnout, Rail, Self-steering Boogie, Door System of Rolling Stock, Static Inverter (SIV), Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Train Control and Monitoring System (TCMS), and Onboard Communication System. TUV Rheinland is currently working with related R&D institutes to provide safety assessment and testing certification during the development of indigenous railway products.