17 January 2021, E405 electric locomotive pulling Mingrihao sunset livery train stopped at Taitung Station. Photo: Kazehayashi / Wikimedia Commons. License via Wikimedia Commons.
30-second overview: The Mingrihao (The Rising Star) is a premium sightseeing train jointly operated by Taiwan Railway Corporation (formerly Taiwan Railway Administration) and Lion Travel, with aesthetic redesign led by Chiu Po-wen of JC. Architecture [1] [2]. Its design origins lie in public reflection on and demand for transformation of Taiwan Railway's long-standing "aesthetic disaster," boldly discarding the traditional chaotic visuals of bright red and green in favor of the core concept "autumn wind," weaving Noble Black and traditional Chu-kuang Orange into an understated, luxurious exterior [3] [4]. Upon its 2020 debut it immediately won Japan's Good Design Award [5]. In 2022 the advanced "Mingri Kitchen" (The Moving Kitchen) was launched, partnering with top culinary teams including The Regent Hotel to serve Michelin-grade feasts in moving railway carriages, winning Germany's iF Design Award's highest honor — the iF Gold Award — and the Service Design Award in 2023 [6] [7]. The birth of the Mingrihao symbolizes Taiwan's railway transport officially crossing from a mere mobility tool into an era of mobile aesthetics fusing design, culture, and premium experience.
Taiwan Railway's century-old path of transformation has always been accompanied by collective memory and historical deep-rooted ills.
For a long time, although Taiwan Railway carried the island's dense north-south kinetic energy, its chaotic interior signage, glaring lighting, and patchwork livery were often mocked by the public and design circles as an "aesthetic disaster" [8]. This aesthetic predicament reached a critical turning point in early 2020. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Taiwan Railway Administration determined to inject design energy, and through the "Taiwan Railway Aesthetic Enhancement Plan," handed retired or refurbished Chu-kuang Express carriages to private professional teams, attempting to break the public sector's decades-old stagnant framework [2] [9].
The core of this turnaround was the team led by JC. Architecture founder Chiu Po-wen [2]. They faced not a blank slate, but a train that had already run on the tracks for decades.
From "Aesthetic Disaster" to "Autumn Wind": The Birth of Subtractive Design
"We are not creating something entirely new, but polishing the soul Taiwan Railway already had." Chiu Po-wen emphasized in multiple interviews [2].
The redesign team's first step was "subtraction." In the past, Taiwan Railway carriage exteriors were plastered with various propaganda stickers, crude fonts, and discordant colors. The design team decided to wash away this noise, painting the carriage body in a unified black-and-orange palette symbolizing autumn imagery — black steady and introverted, orange inheriting the warm, mellow memory most representative of the old Chu-kuang Express [3] [10]. This pairing dubbed "Chu-kuang Orange" and "Noble Black" appears neither gaudy nor vulgar under sunlight, instead exuding an understated sense of luxury [3].
The front of the locomotive was fitted with an exclusive titanium nameplate, its mirror surface reflecting Taiwan's passing mountains and seas; the shallowly engraved smile curve on the plate cleverly echoes the preserved V-pattern livery on the nose, combining historical inheritance with modern craftsmanship [11].
Inside the carriages, the team removed outdated fluorescent light boxes, replacing them with indirect lighting to create a warm, inn-like atmosphere; window frames and seating were precisely calculated so that the rice paddies, seascapes, and mountain ranges outside would no longer be sliced by window mullions, but become flowing, giant landscape paintings [6]. This technique of incorporating the landscape into interior design quickly resonated across Taiwan society. In October 2020, the Mingrihao officially won one of the world's four major design awards, Japan's Good Design Award, becoming a milestone in public railway aesthetic redesign [5].
| Item | Traditional Chu-kuang Express | Mingrihao (The Rising Star) |
|---|---|---|
| Design Lead | Internal agency maintenance and painting | JC. Architecture cross-disciplinary operation [2] |
| Color Aesthetics | Layered across eras, chaotic colors | Noble Black and traditional Chu-kuang Orange, setting the tone "autumn wind" [3] |
| Spatial Experience | Traditional coach seats, harsh white lighting | Indirect warm lighting, large scenic windows, subtractive aesthetics [6] |
| International Honors | None | Japan Good Design Award, Germany iF Gold Award [5] [7] |
Mingri Kitchen: When Railway Travel Meets Michelin-Starred Feast
If the Mingrihao solved "mobile visual aesthetics," then the "Mingri Kitchen" (The Moving Kitchen), officially launched in 2022, extended aesthetics to humanity's most sensitive sense — the palate [12].
The Mingri Kitchen is positioned as a "moving five-star restaurant." To maintain fine-dining quality in a rocking railway environment, Lion Travel and Taiwan Railway invested heavily in refurbishing dedicated carriages, not only redesigning kitchen workflow, ventilation systems, and power stability, but also inviting the world's top hotels to participate [6] [12].
Taiwan Railway Mingrihao dining car interior, fusing Eastern aesthetics with contemporary wood dining table design. Photo: Taiwan Railway Administration (Attribution required). License via Wikimedia Commons.
The first wave of collaboration partnered with The Regent International Hotel Group, with top culinary teams including The Regent's Silks House taking residence, combining Cantonese essence with Taiwan local ingredients (such as Yilan specialties, Hualien seafood) to serve exquisite dishes like crab and West Lake beef soup rice [13]. As the train slowly traversed the Qingshui Cliffs beside the Pacific, passengers sat in dining cars woven with sandalwood grain and leather, savoring star-chef-prepared cuisine on one side while gazing at the unobstructed unity of sea and sky on the other — this all-encompassing sensory experience completely rewrote Taiwanese imagination of railway lunchboxes and railway travel [6].
This breakthrough not only won market acclaim but also shone on the international stage. In 2023, the "Mingri Kitchen" swept Germany's iF Design Award, taking the highest honor "iF Gold Award" and the "Service Design Award" [7]. The jury gave extremely high praise: "Through successfully combining travel, dining, and transportation service design with hotel standards, this experience ultimately becomes a kind of luxurious lifestyle on a moving train." [14]
Paradigm Shift in Taiwan's High-End Railway Travel
The success of the Mingrihao and Mingri Kitchen holds significance for Taiwan society far beyond a single train's commercial operation.
In the past, Taiwan's railway culture mostly focused on railway enthusiasts' historical research, old station preservation, or nostalgic lunchboxes. However, the Mingrihao proved that Taiwan has the capacity to upgrade public infrastructure into high-end carriers of culture and economy through contemporary design and cross-industry alliances (such as Lion Travel's itinerary planning, The Regent Hotel's dining service, JC. Architecture's spatial aesthetics) [1] [6].
It forced the aging state-owned enterprise to rethink the value of "details." From the elegant uniforms of conductors and onboard attendants (given the title "Aesthetic Attendants"), to the exclusive ambient music and local narration played onboard, every link constructs a discourse of mobile aesthetics belonging to contemporary Taiwan [15]. When foreign travelers and local younger generations re-board this black-and-orange interwoven train, they see not merely a refurbished railway carriage, but an island soul yearning to find an elegant balance between modernity and local memory.