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Alishan rail repairs to be done by October

A project to repair the Alishan railway in Chiayi County will be completed by the end of October, the Forestry Bureau’s Chiayi office said on Thursday.

The office made the remarks after reports said Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) had expressed anger at the lengthy delay in repairing the narrow gauge railway to one of Taiwan’s most popular tourist attractions.

Liu was quoted as saying at a meeting with transport and tourist service officials on Wednesday that procrastinating on repairs to the railway was “intolerable and unacceptable” and that the delay had seriously tarnished the government’s image.

The Alishan railway is managed by the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau.

Yang Hung-chih (楊宏志), a department chief at the Chiayi Forestry District Office, said the delay in repairing the railway was mainly caused by Hungtu Alishan International Co’s unwillingness to contribute to the cost of the repairs.

Liu was quoted as demanding a review of Hungtu’s license to operate the railway under a build-operate-transfer project.

Under its contract, Hungtu is required to pay 20 percent of of repairs to damage caused by natural disasters, but the company says that last October’s disruption was caused by flawed soil conservation work by the Forestry Bureau, not a natural disaster.

The bureau commissioned an engineering company to conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the disruption. Results released on Wednesday concluded that it was not caused by Forestry Bureau negligence.

With Hungtu agreeing to pay its 20 percent share of the repair costs, Yang said the project would proceed immediately and would be completed by the end of October.

The Chan Nao Liao section at the 23.5km marker of the 71.4km railway has been closed since October following a series of natural disasters caused by typhoons and torrential rain. Nearly 70m of the railway’s base collapsed, leaving a section of the tracks hanging in midair.

At present, passengers have to disembark and carry their luggage 500m up a mountain trail before getting on another train at the other end of the damaged section.

This has drawn complaints over the past few months from local and Chinese tourists, as well as those visiting from other countries.

“It is outrageous that this world-class alpine railway suffers such a world-class inconvenience,” Liu said at Wednesday’s meeting. “At this critical juncture for our tourism industry, we cannot sit idly by any longer.”
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