My first visit to Taiwan

The Lungshan Temple in Taipei

In an earlier post (Working for the Big Boys) I described how, in the 1970s, my firm came to supply railway telecommunications equipment to GEC Telecommunications for use on the Trunk Line Electrification Project in Taiwan. During the commissioning of this equipment, I made three visits to Taiwan.

The first trip was also the first time I had travelled to the Far East or, indeed, outside Europe. To minimise the travel costs, GEC supplied the tickets (economy class, of course) which involved flying to Hong Kong, overnighting in a decent hotel and then flying on to Taipei, capital of Taiwan. GEC had their own travel company called Magnet Travel which made arrangements for all the GEC companies.

As you can imagine, it was all a bit of an adventure for me. I was not used to flying so even getting to Heathrow and checking in was a challenge. The flight to Hong Kong was long. In fact, it seemed interminable to me. But eventually, we broke through the low cloud on our final approach to the original Hong Kong airport, Kai Tak.

At the time, Kai Tak was regarded as one of the most dangerous airports in the world. It was very close to the mainland city centre and the runway had been extended out across the bay. Landing involved quite sharp manoevring at low altitude to miss the multistorey apartments. It used to be said that you could check out what people in the flats were having to eat as you approached. A missed approach was equally hazardous as the end of the runway faced a tall rock face and it was no mean feat to gain sufficient altitude to climb over the rock face in order to 'Go-around'. You may imagine that I was just a little anxious as we landed but we did so, safely.

I went through immigration, was re-united with my luggage and then noticed how amazingly hot and humid it was. I feared that I might collapse with the oppressive heat. Neither was I prepared for the noise and clamour - so many people, so much shouting! I think I managed to sort out a taxi to take me to the hotel, hardly believing that I was really there, in Hong Kong. The hotel was modern, large and comfortable but I was soon outside again, exploring, although it was already dark. My curiosity was stronger than my terror of this alien place. I was fascinating with the way life was conducted on the pavement - open shopfronts revealing an amazing variety of businesses which remained open very late, street vendors selling food I didn't even recognise from makeshift stalls and food being stir-fried virtually in the gutter and eaten nonchalently by diners balanced precariously on ramshackle seats at tiny tables. I'd never experienced anything like it and I was frightened and amazed in about equal measure. Nothing untoward happened to me but next morning, when I met up with well-travelled GEC staff, they did suggest that it was somewhat inadvisable to go wandering around Wan Chai alone at night.

I can't remember much about the onward flight to Taipei. It might have been a China Airlines flight. They had a rather poor safety record and I can certainly remember one flight in a superannuated 'Caravelle' which did little to instill confidence in the carrier but I'm not sure whether it was that flight. We landed very close to the city centre at Chiang Kai Shek Airport. Since then, international flights have been diverted to a new airport miles away but Chiang Kai Shek is still used by domestic flights. It didn't take long to get to our hotel in the centre of Taipei - the Flowers Hotel. I think GEC had a block booking on rooms here to cater for all the coming and going in connection with the Project but I'm afraid it was a rather run-down establishment.

GEC had offices within the headquarters building of the Taiwan Railways Administration and I was soon introduced to some of the senior Chinese from the railway who were managing the Project. I was impressed with the unfailing courtesy which which I was treated on all my visits to Taiwan by the Chinese railway managers. They could be demanding and they were sometimes displeased with progress but this was not used as an excuse for raised voices or unpleasantness or, at least, certainly not when I was present. However, the Chinese ways of business are quite different from what I was used to. These cultural differences were mainly dealt with by GEC's Chinese agents - Grand Engineering.

Most of my work was technical and practical, but I discovered a little about the recent history of Taiwan. When the supporters of Chiang Kai Shek were finally driven out of Mainland China by Mao Tse Tung and the Communists, they settled in the island province of Taiwan which became the Republic of China. The indiginous Taiwanese with their own dialects of Chinese had to absorb many upper-class Chinese, Mandarin-speaking, who assumed positions of power. The immigrants brought significant wealth and many historical artefacts with them. They considered themselves guardians of the true Chinese heritage. The U.S.A. provided support to Taiwan, as the last bastion against the Communists over-running South East Asia. Taiwan was technically at war with mainland China, the 'Peoples Republic of China' and armed police and military were everywhere. I didn't find this situation as intimidating as I expected because people seemed friendly but it was still worth remembering not to act in a way which could be construed as 'Spying for the Communists'.

I travelled extensively to various locations on the railway, accompanied by GEC staff who knew their way around, but when I received my own all-areas travel pass for the railway, I started travelling on my own in the evening or at weekends. I'd acquired only a tiny collection of Chinese phrases, like 'Good morning', 'Please', 'Thank you' but armed with my railway pass and rather laborious research to try to decode timetables in Chinese, I could travel anywhere and did. I never found out exactly what it said on my pass but I could expect salutes from security staff as I marched importantly through the ticket barrier. I remember standing on the open verandah at the rear of a passenger train one evening, enjoying the sunset and having a bit of struggle persuading the attentive guard that I didn't want him to throw passengers out of their reserved seats so that I could sit inside!

Around Taipei, services were either diesel multiple units or diesel locomotive hauled. Further South, I found a little steam but, sadly, I lacked the opportunity and, perhaps, the inclination to go in search of it. After all, I was being paid to work and there were plenty of problems to try to solve. I also regret that, at the time, I was not taking photographs, so I have some wonderful sights preserved only in my memory. Those of you who have trawled my digital photographs on the web will be aware that I'm trying to make up for those barren photographic years now.

Although the hotel in Taipei was a little basic, the GEC ex-patriates based in Taipei for the Project duration fared rather better with their rented houses and servants. I was frequently invited for a visit or meal to one of these rather grand places. When people have once worked overseas, they are often reluctant to return and work back home, because they usually cannot recapture the life-style they enjoyed abroad.

At the time, the main station in Taipei was a rather elderly and scruffy affair and the railway lines headed off North and South at ground level, intersecting dozens of important roads at a series of manned level crossings provided with ramshackle lifting barriers and almost-incessant electric warning bells. The most common road transport was the bicycle and I can still picture the mass start each time the barriers lifted and a hundred or more bicycles pedalled furiously away, clashing with the bicycles heading in the opposite direction and with the impatient motor vehicles threatening carnage as they forced their way through.

When I re-visited Taiwan in 2005, the railway through Taipei had been placed in a tunnel, the main station rebuilt, the most common road vehicle is now the motor scooter and the city has grown almost beyond recognition. Click for details of my subsequent trip to Taiwan in 2005.

Many other memories of my three early trips to Taiwan bubble up, particularly the third one, where I was accompanied by my Mother on her first trip to the Far East, but I'll save them for another time.

Railway Signalling: Mond Gas Company's Sidings

Click for larger version of the diagram

This signal box was on the Stour Valley Line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. The next box towards Birmingham was Dudleyport (Click for more information) and Watery Lane (Click for more information) was on the Wolverhampton side. In clear weather, all three boxes were in sight of one another, so 'Short Section Working' applied.

Why the odd box name? Ludwig Mond (1839-1909) was born in Germany. He trained as a chemist and moved to England in 1862, helping to found the British chemical industry. He became interested in the manufacture of ammonia, and the Mond Producer Gas Process arose from this interest. In the early 1900s, the Mond Gas plant at Dudleyport was using 3 million tonnes of coal a year, so the private sidings were well justified. By the time I knew the signal box, only a few wagons a week were moving in and out. Shortly afterwards, the plant was demolished to make way for a new gas works making gas from oil. A new connection was laid at Watery Lane to take oil into the plant in bogie oil tankers. Then offshore natural gas was discovered so the gas-from-oil plant was redundant. The whole area is now covered by housing and no trace of the Mond Gas signal box remains.

Mond Gas box was a standard London and North Western Railway pattern, with a Webb frame on the side nearest the running lines. The block shelf carried four Fletcher combined 'Double Needle' instruments. The two in the middle were Absolute Block for the Main Lines and these were flanked by two 'Permissive' instruments (with mechanical reminder for the number of trains in the section) for the Goods Lines. An L.N.W. Block Switch (in a wooden case matching the design of the Block Instruments) was also provided on the block shelf to allow 'switching out'. Signals would be 'pulled off' for through movements on all four lines and the block section would extend from Dudleyport to Watery Lane.

When I knew the box, it was open 'As Required' for only a few hours a week, so I didn't have many opportunities to work the box. It was covered as a 'Porter-Signalman' job at Dudleyport in the day. Most of the time, the rostered man (invariably referred to as the 'Porter-Bobby') would be doing portering duties on Dudleyport Station. When required, he would walk along the line the few hundred yards to the Mond Gas box, open up and perform any required shunting. Then he would close and walk back to Dudleyport.

The box only controlled only one stop signal on each road, because of the proximity of the adjacent boxes. The signals were upper quadrant LMS bracket signals and distant arms were carried underneath the stop signal for the box in advance. Lever 6 was for the Down Goods, lever 3 for the Down Main. On the Up, lever 24 was for the Up Main and lever 21 for the Up Goods. Lever 25 worked distants for the Up Main only. This lever worked a weight bar on Watery Lane's Up Starting and Tipton's Up Starting. Both of these distants were 'slotted' so that the arm did not come off until the stop arm above was 'off'. There was also a further weight bar 'slotting' the distant on Watery Lane's Up Starting which was controlled from Dudleyport. Similarly, there was a further weight bar 'slotting' the distant on Tipton's Up Starting which was controlled from Dudleyport. For the Down Main, lever 2 worked a total of three successive distants on Dudleyport's Down Home 1 (this distant arm was motor operated because of the distance), Down Home 2 (the wooden LMS gantry: again, the distant arm was motor operated) and Down Starting (the LMS 5-arm bracket signal). These distant signals were slotted with the stop arms on the same post and also slotted so as to be controlled by Watery Lane. On the Down Goods, Dudleyport had a Down Starting signal which was 'slotted' by lever 5 at Mond Gas. This sort of signalling complication was common where boxes were close together.

A freight train wishing to attach or detach at Mond Gas would typically stop, draw forward either light or with the required wagons, propel into the sidings, attach or detach, rejoin the rest of its train and then depart. Trains on the Up Goods did not interfere with other movements and there were two connections with the works - crossover 15 or crossover 17. No signals were provided for setting back, so this was authorised by handsignal from the box. Ground disc signals were provided leaving the sidings, signals 16 and 18. Note that signal 16 had a yellow bar. This allowed the signal to be passed at danger for a movement into the Headshunt. Trains on the Down Goods could set back into the Headshunt via a running crossover (levers 12 and 14), blocking all running lines in the process. Trains on the Down Main could set back into the Headshunt via a running crossover (levers 12 and 13), blocking everything except the Down Goods. Again, handsignals were used to authorise the setting back but a 2-arm ground signal was provided for movements leaving the Headshunt - signal 10 read to Down Goods, signal 11 to Down Main.

The box had no track circuits and only one signal was controlled by the Block - signal 24 on the Up Main. It was typical to add Block Control in a piecemeal fashion, dealing with the greatest perceived hazards first. The electric lock on lever 24 could only be released if the Block Indicator from Dudleyport stood at 'Line Clear', minimising the risk of an Up train being allowed to approach Dudleyport in error when Dudleyport was turning a train out from the Dudley branch or from the Up Goods or when the Up Platform was occupied by a stationary train or vehicles.

Although the boxes at Dudleyport and Mond Gas have gone, Watery Lane remains as a shunting frame and there are still goods loops, now controlled remotely from a Power Signal Box. Running Lines are now track circuited throughout and signals are four-aspect colour lights.

'Linda'

I've commented earlier (see post about 'Henry' ) that the design of four-coupled industrials remained fairly static for a long period. 'Linda' is a Bagnall saddle tank (works number 2648), formerly 'Dunlop No. 6', which has been restored at Shackerstone. 'Linda' has strong family resemblances with many similar locomotives, like 'Henry'.

Pictures of 'Linda'