The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) plans to invest NT$2.2 billion (US$72.4 million) to restore the Old Mountain Line (舊山線) to improve connections between tourist destinations in central Taiwan.
The TRA runs the New Mountain Line and the Sea Line as part of its west coast system. The former runs from Junan (竹南) to Changhua County, while the latter to the east runs from Dajia (大甲) to Cingshuei (清水).
The Old Mountain Line was constructed in 1903 and began operating in 1908, the TRA said.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Railways Administration
Operations ceased in 1998, when the agency switched the route to the New Mountain Line after a dual-track system was completed in Taichung.
However, local government officials and private organizations have been urging the restoration of the Old Mountain Line, while the Bureau of Cultural Heritage has listed it as a potential world heritage site.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications last year asked the TRA to devise a plan to restore the line.
“We plan to spend about NT$2.2 billion to restore the 15.9km line from Sanyi (三義) in Miaoli County to Taichung’s Houli District (后里). The restoration will take about four-and-a-half years,” TRA Planning Department Director Kuo Kuan-hung (郭冠宏) said.
The restoration project would cover six railway crossings, four stations, six steel bridges and eight tunnels, Kuo said.
Both rail bikes and trains would operate on the Old Mountain Line once it has been restored, he said.
The restored line would help connect important tourism corridors in central Taiwan, from a locomotive park in Miaoli to Taian Railway Culture Park in Taichung and the fan-shaped train depot in Changhua, Kuo said.
It could also be connected to Chengcheng (車埕) and Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) via the Jiji Line, he added.
“We have estimated that restoration could begin next year and be completed by 2024. After construction is completed, we can then apply for the line to be inspected before it begins operations in 2025,” Kuo said.
The TRA could outsource the operation of the Old Mountain Line to a contractor, or the Miaoli County and Taichung City governments, Kuo said.
There are expected to be relatively few visitors to the Old Mountain Line when it opens, with the preliminary plan being that tourists could use rail bikes on the line on weekdays, he said.
At weekends, the contractor could dispatch locomotives that are able to carry 20 to 30 passengers from Sanyi to Shengsing (勝興), and from Old Taian Station to Houli, Kuo said.
Tourists could then take rail bikes from Shengsing to Old Taian Station, he added.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERs IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS