I think this is likely a failure of communication on my part, but in case it isn’t, let me know.
Went cycling up along part of the north-east coast the other day, but turned back to Keelung when the weather got just too blustery. At the Keelung train station, the ticket person, whose English was about as bad as my Chinese, said I couldn’t take the train on without a bag. When I asked why, she said something I couldn’t understand, except something about Banqiao Train Station and…‘Christmas’.
Because I’m the kind of person who fully expects disaster to strike at any second, I did, in fact, have my (cheap, Giant) bike bag with me, thereby completely justifying its purchase in that moment. Even though I had fully expected to wheel my bike on and off.
Anyway, I bagged the thing and got on the next train, so no problem, but: I checked the app I use for train times, and I’m pretty sure it had the bike symbol showing all the trains at that time allowed you to roll your bikes on and off.
So either I misunderstood something - entirely possible - or the TRA isn’t giving out accurate information when it comes to things like, I guess, holidays or other events. Wondering what was going on at Banqiao, I googled ‘christmas’ and ‘Banqiao’ on the train home and saw some kind of Christmas fair or event was starting that day.
If there was, I didn’t see much sign of it when I arrived at Banqiao: put my bike back together and didn’t see any obstructions.
So am I missing something, or is there something peculiarly random about train information here?