Taiwan's epic train ride through 50 tunnels and 77 bridges

BBC News

15-06-2025

The historic Alishan Forest Railway, once crippled by typhoons and earthquakes, is running again – and helping revive mountain villages, celebrate Indigenous heritage and redefine slow travel in Taiwan.
A fun fact: it's not just cities that have twin destinations; heritage railways do, too. I learn this while riding south-western Taiwan's recently restored Alishan Forest Railway, which reopened in 2024 as a tourist train, 118 years after steam locomotives first hauled timber along its tracks.
One of the most passionate advocates for its restoration is Michael Reilly, the former British Representative to Taiwan. He's also company secretary for Wales' Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway and the reason why, in 2022, the Alishan Forest's Railway became its twin. The union was cemented by the presentation of a diesel engine, once used in Alishan, now ferrying holidaymakers through the rolling hills of Powys, Wales.
With international visitor numbers to Taiwan booming and new routes – including flights from Emirates, timed specifically to suit Taiwan-bound travellers from the UK – It's not hard to see why the Taiwan Railway Administration was so supportive of the endeavour. It's an opportunity to show off the island's less-explored regions, showing visitors that there's more to Taiwan than Taipei's sky-scraping Taipei 101 tower and famous night markets.
But this railway is more than just a tourist train – it provides an insight into Taiwan's history, starting with its colonisation by Japan.
It was 1900, five years into Japan's colonial rule of Taiwan, when Japanese railway technician Iida Toyoji surveyed a mountain route to carry Alishan's prized timber from forested peaks to the country's ports. The first sections were completed by 1907, and the first engines were Shay locomotives – American powerhouses capable of dragging tonnes of timber along the endless switchbacks and spirals. One of them earned a Guinness World Record for travelling the "world's longest railway spiral". The start and end of the Dulishan Spiral are only 570m apart, but an elevation difference of 233m means trains traveling on this stretch must negotiate 5km of twisting track to cover what would be a 570m straight-line distance.
Other feats of engineering include numerous bridges that span Alishan's forested valleys and meandering tunnels dug though mountains shaped by landslides. At times, I find myself staring down at sections of track I passed moments before, losing the ability to keep count of the dizzying number of switchbacks, and every so often I glimpse the remnants of a small landside or a fallen cypress – a reminder of the challenges faced by railway engineers toiling away in a region where earthquakes are an almost monthly occurrence.
In 1908, the Japanese company funding the railway suspended construction, citing financial problems, and the Government-General of Taiwan stepped in. By 1912 Shay steam locomotives were puffing along the twisting tracks once more. Passenger services started in 1920, but timber was still the main cargo and the trains ground to a halt in the 1960s as demand for wood declined. A huge fire in 1976 and the Jiji earthquake in 1999 disrupted the few passenger services still running, but the final nail in the coffin was the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Morakot in 2009, which suspended all services.
Yet calls to restore the full 71km route from Chiayi, where those first steam trains puffed out of the station in 1907, to Alishan Station, 2,216m above sea level, never ceased. The railway had become a lifeline for Indigenous communities along the route, connecting them with schools, doctors and markets. Tourists, too, kept coming to ride the few still-operational sections.
In 2013, with support from the Taiwan Railway Administration and the Forestry Bureau, limited operations resumed. In 2019, Taiwan's Ministry of Culture, keen to expand its tourist offerings, announced the creation of the Alishan Forestry and Railway Cultural Landscape. Restoration work continued, and in early 2024 the route reopened in its entirety. On 29 April, the first passenger train returned to the tracks.
As I rumble through Alishan's cedar-scented forests, it's easy to see why the original engineers struggled. This alpine obstacle course features 50 bridges and 77 tunnels. Occasionally, on some of the steeper sections, I hear a shrill alarm from the train's cab – a warning that the wheels have slipped slightly. Large machines can't access much of the remote track, so railway sleepers were laid by hand. At one point, we swerve into a recently constructed tunnel; to its left is the dark, cavernous entrance of the old one, now perilously close to the rapidly eroding cliff face.
One of the first stops is Lumachan, once a tobacco production hub, now ringed by rice paddies. When the railway fell into disrepair, the station and the nearby tobacco warehouses did too. But with services restored, the area has revived. The shiny new station, with its ornate tiled roof, is now the disembarkation point for passengers visiting the nearby Tobacco Cultural Park, where they can peek inside former tobacco warehouses.
Further along is Fenqihu, which sprang up around its namesake train station. As one of the railway's larger stops, it had its own army of workers. "Fenqihu Station was a lot busier in the past," says villager Li Mao-Song, whose grandfather worked as a coal carrier. But the railway's rebirth is helping bring life back to the village. In a locomotive shed at one end of the platform I find a restored steam engine and an artefact-filled exhibition about the railway's history.
An hour-long pause here allows passengers time to stretch their legs, and it's also a popular stop for walkers who come to hike the trails that weave through Alishan's forests. I'm waylaid, however, by the scents wafting from nearby food stalls. I opt for a bento box of turkey rice topped with soy sauce and daikon. It's a local delicacy once beloved by the train drivers and lumberjacks who'd stop here to rest and refuel, and now by tourists, who flock to the tiny restaurants and street food stalls surrounding the station.
Back onboard, golden sunlight seeps through swathes of bamboo (grown and harvested by Alishan's Indigenous Tsou tribe), complete with a soundtrack of timber-tapping woodpeckers. More than half Taiwan's firefly species can be found here, and giant flying squirrels are regularly spotted. I'm admittedly disappointed that I fail to see a deer, who live here in huge numbers (Lumachan station's name is derived from the word luman, meaning "full of deer").
At each station, the conductor leans out the door and passes a token on a loop of rope to a stationmaster, who passes a different one back. The exchange is a nod to the railway's earliest days, when movement along the tracks was strictly controlled and trains could only progress onto the next section once conductors were in possession of the correct token. It's a ritual clearly cherished by railway employees.
These employees would have been almost entirely male when the first steam engines hauled their cargo through Alishan's forests. More than a century later, the rail staff is decidedly more mixed. "Many people think railway workers will be male," says Lo Yu-Ting, who helps manage operational routes and was previously stationmaster at the railway's Zhushan Station, Taiwan's highest station. "But when I joined, I was so happy to find so many skilled women in different roles."
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Lo believes the emphasis on teamwork plays a major role. "As a station master, I faced many challenges – managing trains and staff and dealing with natural disasters, which can be tough. But there's great support for employees. This allows me to take care of my two daughters while working."
I meet Lo in Chiayi, the line's starting point. On the adjacent platform, Taiwan's high-speed trains flash past in a blur. In contrast, Alishan Forest Railway's red diesel engine roars to life, ready to haul its restored cedar-clad carriages skywards.
Chiayi is a city shaped by cedar and cypress. In the early 1900s, many railway workers lived at nearby Hinoki Village, where their former cypress-wood homes have been lovingly preserved. It's now a magnet for tourists who come to slurp bubble tea in old drivers' houses or to snap up vases made from bamboo.
Outside one of the squat wooden cottages stands the railway's mascot: a fibreglass deer sporting a baseball cap bearing the line's logo. At first the deer seems an unusual choice – I didn't spot a single one on during my time in Alishan. But deer have long symbolised longevity in Taiwan, and their cedar-coloured fur mirrors the forests this line winds through. Perhaps this cheerful cap-wearing ruminant is the perfect emblem for a railway that refuses to fade away.
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