The C341 stands out among other Taipei Metro trains for not being directly procured by the Department of Rapid Transit Systems but rather by Continental Engineering Corporation, the project contractor of the Tucheng Line. Continental Engineering initially intended to procure the new trains from KOROS 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. Another notable difference between the C341 and C321 is that the C341 now uses IGBT-VVVF inverters instead of the GTO-VVVF of the C321.
Deployment
They are currently in service on the Bannan line.
Trains
A complete six-car trainset consists of an identical twin set of one driving motor car, one trailer car and one intermediate motor car 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.
The first digit indicates the position of the car. Hence, DM1 cars use the number x=1, T cars x=2, and M2 cars x=3
The other three digits are the identification number of the train the car is part of. A full-length train of six cars consists of two identification numbers, one for the first three cars, and another for the second three. The bigger number is always equal to the smaller number plus one, and the smaller number is always an odd number. For example, a train of six cars would have serial numbers 1201, 2201, 3201, 3202, 2202, and 1202, respectively.
