Taipei Metro C341
The Taipei Metro C341 is the third generation of electric multiple units on the Taipei Metro in Taipei, Taiwan. Built by Siemens Mobility and SGP Verkehrstechnik in Austria, it was introduced on the Bannan line in 2003. History. The C341 stands out among other Taipei Metro trains for not being directly procured by the Department of Rapid Transit Systems (DORTS) but rather by Continental Engineering Corporation, the project contractor of the Tucheng Line. Continental Engineering initially intended to procure the new trains from KOROS (now Hyundai Rotem) of South Korea but this proposal was rejected by DORTS . Hence, Continental Engineering purchased six new six-car trainsets from Siemens, the supplier of the earlier C321 trains, at NT$ 2,248 million; the price per car for the C341 was hence 1.5 times more than that for the C321, which were directly procured by DORTS. The C341 trains were handed over to DORTS from mid-September to mid-November 2004 and began operations on the Bannan Line in January 2005. With the launch of the C341, the number of extra trains in the morning peak time of the Bannan line increased from three trains and six trains to four trains  and eight trains, helping reduce headways on the Bannan Line from 4 minutes to 3 minutes and 20 seconds on average. Design. The design of the C341 train is very similar to the earlier C321 trains. However, upon closer inspection, there are several subtle differences with the car body, detrainment door, gangways and windows. Most notably, the trains initially did not have side LED destination displays or line colour indicators as they could not be installed during the warranty period. Such passenger information displays have however since been retrofitted. The interior design is very similar to the C321 trains. Unlike  the C321, the second digit in the carriage numbers of the C341 is a 2, not a 1. Another current notable difference between the C341 and C321 is the traction inverters for the AC motors, i.e. the C341 uses IGBT–VVVF inverters for its AC motors instead of C321's GTO–VVVF inverters. As the C341 trains have been in service for nearly 20 years, the TRTC announced the tender for the first time to propose a traction system replacement together with the C321 in February 2021. The bid opened on 10 May 2021 and on 30 July 2021, TRSC  won the contract to do so. Following the Red line C301's traction system replacement, this will be Taipei Metro's third traction system replacement. Deployment. The C341 was built under CP341 as 1 trainset for the Xindian line, 1 trainset for the Zhonghe line, and 4 trainsets for the Tucheng line. Trains. A complete six-car trainset consists of an identical twin set of one driving motor car (DM1), one trailer car (T) and one intermediate motor car (M2) permanently coupled together. The configuration of a C341 trainset in revenue service is DM1–T–M2–M2–T–DM1. Each  car is assigned its own four-digit serial number, which ranges from x201 to x212. References. This article incorporates information from the corresponding articles on the Chinese and Japanese Wikipedias.