National Taiwan Museum Railway Department Park

In 1885 Liu Mingchuan, governor of Taiwan, hired British and German advisers to build an arsenal (機器局) at the Tamsui River docks to assemble guns and ammunition and to mint coins. It included an iron foundry and a forge. In 1895 the Japanese military took over the arsenal and turned it into the Taipei Weapons Repair Works, which made and repaired army weapons and could produce shells, fuses, rifle bullets and cartridge cases, ships, and iron railway bridges. It was later renamed the Taiwan Artillery Arsenal. In 1900 the Army Ministry handed it to the Railway Department, and the same year it became the Taipei Works (臺北工場). In 1908 the trunk railway along western Taiwan opened, and rail traffic and the need for rolling stock repairs grew sharply. In 1909 the Taipei Works expanded east with a new vehicle repair shop and paint shop. From 1915 the existing buildings on the south side of the site were demolished, and in 1918 the new Railway Department office building was built. It stood alongside the Taipei Works, with the offices to the south and the works to the north, until the Taipei Works moved to Songshan in 1934 (today the 臺北機廠, a national monument). The block once held nearly 40 buildings. Those not kept were demolished for MRT construction in 2005 and during the monument restoration in 2013. Ten remain, including eight legally designated cultural heritage sites: the Railway Department building, the dining hall, the octagonal men's toilet, the power room, the engineering office, the wartime command centre, the remains of the Qing-era arsenal, and the Taipei Works (outside the Railway Department Park). After the Second World War the Railway Department became the Taiwan railway administration (臺灣鐵路管理局). Tacheng Street, a road in the city plan, opened in 1967 and cut the block off from the Railway Department staff housing to the west, creating the block seen today. In 1992 the Taipei City Government designated the Railway Department building a Grade 3 historic site, and in 1993 the railway headquarters moved to the new Taipei Station building. In 2005 the Council for Cultural Affairs (文建會) commissioned 東海大學 and 中原大學 to survey the monument and plan its reuse. In 2006 the transport ministry and the railway administration, together with the Council for Cultural Affairs and the National Taiwan Museum, signed a Taiwan museum system alliance agreement, and the restoration and reuse of the Railway Department formally began. The basic concept was a "Railway Department Museum Park": a mixed-use park with modern exhibition themes, linked with the surrounding city and its history. In 2007 the Council for Cultural Affairs designated it a national monument, adding the octagonal building, dining hall, power room, engineering office and wartime command centre. Taipei City designated the Taipei Works and the Qing-era arsenal site as city monuments in 2008 and 2010 respectively. Since 2009 the National Taiwan Museum has managed the land and buildings.

Translated and shortened by DealTaipei from Taiwan's national tourism database. Sources are on the terms page.