Alishan Forest Railway

Alishan Forest Railway

In 1899, the Japanese planned to build the Alishan railway for transferring timber, with a gauge of 762 mm, a maximum slope of 6.25% and a minimum radius of curvature of 40 meters. In 1921, the 66.6 km long section from Jiayi to 20000 Ping was opened to traffic. In 1924, it was extended to Alishan and gradually added a branch line, with a total length of 71.4 km. All the way from Jiayi, which is 30 meters above sea level, to Mt. Ali, which is 2216 meters high, passes 49 tunnels and 77 bridges. Along the way, you can enjoy the changes of plant species in different forest zones, such as heat, warmth and temperature, as well as the beautiful mountains and valleys.

General situation of Railway

administrative division

Alishan Forest Railway is divided into two sections: plain section and mountain section. The former refers to 14.2km from Jiayi to Zhuqi, while the latter refers to 57.2km from Zhuqi to Alishan. When the train is propelled to the independent hill, in order to accommodate the steep shape of the hill, it has to spiral around the independent hill for three times (about five kilometers long and 200 meters high) to reach the top of the hill. When turning up the mountain, you can see the left and right zhangnaoliao station still at the foot of the mountain three times on the train, and then the railway leaves the independent mountain in an 8-shaped way. From pingzhena station to the first lane, the railway zigzags along. After three lanes, the train sometimes drags forward, sometimes pushes backward, and finally arrives at Alishan, so it is called "Alishan train hit a wall".

Surrounding scenery

As for the 9.2km long mianyue branch line, which was opened in 1983, the train winds all the way between the high mountains with an altitude of more than 2000m. When you see a huge stone more than 10m high and shaped like a monkey, you will arrive at the terminal "stone monkey recreation area". The white wood forest is a wonder of the stone monkey recreation area. After the forest fire, the short plants were burned out, leaving only the tall pines and fir withered. After the wind, sun, rain and frost, the skin of these burned trees turned white and became an eye-catching landscape. Arrange an hour's hiking tour to see the ancient camphor Liao, bamboo shoot stove and charcoal kiln in the recreation area. You can understand the manufacturing process through the explanation board. As for the pavilions such as the leaf Pavilion, the Wangxiang Pavilion and the Qixia Pavilion, they are good places for listening to the pines or overlooking the scenery of Caoling. In addition, the "Taiwan yelan exhibition area" shows the ecological history of Taiwan's rare wild orchids. Yiyelan grows in Alishan Mountain and blooms from February to April every year. It is named after the fact that only one leaf grows under the flower.

Route overview

Logging period

Alishan Forest Railway consists of one main line, two main lines in forest farms, and many branch lines. The route of this period is as follows:

The main line, Alishan line, starts from Jiayi station, Jiayi city and ends at Maoping station, Alishan Township, Jiayi county. In the early stage of forest farm development, there were several branch lines for short-range forest farm operation, but they have disappeared.

There are two main lines in the forest farm, which are respectively from the station. One of them leads northward to mianyue and ends at wusongkeng after passing through Songshan. There are several branch lines, including tashanli line, dalongxi line, dalongxi line, dalongxi line and daxuelin line, connecting mianyue line with cableway. The line is divided into East-West line and Xianrendong extension line. The other one extends to the southeast, all the way to Zizhong and gaogaokou. On the way, it diverges from xiangxueshan line, Shuishan line (or Xinggang line) at Zizhong, Xiashan line, Shishan line and Dongpu line (or dodoka line) at gaogaokou, and connects Dongpu line by cableway. The end of the Dongpu line is about behind the kitchen of today's Dongpu villa. The first route is generally called Tashan line, and some people call it mianyue line. The name of the second route is more confusing. When the route from marsh flat to ER Yu (today's Zizhong) was just completed in 1932, it was called Er Yu line (Kodama is pronounced by Er Yu's Japanese in the forest farm, and this branch line is commonly known as Kodama branch line). However, with the establishment of the subsequent branch lines, Dongpu line, doudoka line and Shuishan line were established Line and Xinggang line, which were originally used for branch line, are also commonly used to refer to this line, and have been used in different works. After the Republic of China, because Er Yu changed her name to Zizhong, it was also called Zizhong line (see entry: Zizhong). Among them, Dongpu line and dodoka line are often used to refer to this trunk line. It seems normal that the names of branch lines and main lines are confused with each other. Even the records of the forestry bureau should be described in the form of notes.

Gaogaokou, as the mountaineering entrance of the new high mountain (Yushan), is the terminal point of passenger transportation during the logging period, and also the starting point of Yushan forest road (built to replace the function of Dongpu line connecting Nanzi Xianxi forest road) built in 1967. After the completion of the construction of the forest road, the Dongpu line (or dokka line) behind the new high pass was stopped at the end of 1968 and demolished from 1977 to 1978.

After logging, in order to meet the needs of tourism, the terminal was changed to Alishan station in January 1981. The reason why the station is also called "old station" is here.

The first half of the original Tashan line has been reorganized to become a well-known mianyue line. In the middle of the route, a new Zhushan railway was built to take tourists up the mountain to watch the sunrise. Both routes start at Alishan station. The tashanli line, which diverges from the crossroads, is still reserved. The dalongxi line, which diverges from Tashan station, is used as a new route for Alishan to pass through Fengshan (fenga), and some sections are still passable. After the mianyue line was changed to the branch line of yashanping forest road, it had been a long-term vertical route for xi'a. in 1996, after the hebotai earthquake, the forest service bureau announced to close the vertical route, and the forest road was further damaged after the 921 earthquake.

The original Dongpu line has not been changed for sightseeing. Only the part from the station to the Shenmu reservoir remains. It has been rumored for a long time that this section will be used for sightseeing, but there is no following. It was not until after the fall of Alishan Shenmu that it was renovated because it was close to the reservoir Shenmu (or Xiangxue Shenmu), and the 1.6 km long section was called Shuishan line. As the terminal has not yet been built, the road section has not been used as a light station until 2017. After the destination of Shuishan line, there was No.1 Tunnel of Shuishan line, which was destroyed by the reservoir collapse accident in 1992. The subgrade of Shuishan line (or Xinggang line) at Zizhong branch is generally in good condition. The first half of the line has been reorganized to form a part of Tefuye ancient road, which can be accessed from Xuefeng police station. Forest railway can still be seen on the ancient road. At present, Shanyou are still walking along Xiashan line, which branches from gaogaokou. Almost all the tracks have been removed, but the subgrade is still in good condition. There is little information about the Shishan line, which is also separated from gaogaokou, except that there are still tunnels.

The section of Dongpu line from No.1 Tunnel near Shenmu reservoir to Zizhong is reconstructed as new Zhongheng highway, with only a few remains. After Zizhong, the old subgrade was not extended, the highway was higher and the old railway was lower.

921 earthquake

The 921 earthquake in 1999 had a significant impact on this line. In addition to the serious damage of Alishan station and the need for reconstruction, the mianyue line was also damaged in the earthquake and was unable to pass. The important scenic spot "Shihou" broke off from its neck. Due to the damage of Alishan station, from 1999 to 2000, the terminal station was temporarily changed back to Maoping station. After several years of reconstruction, the new station was opened on September 13, 2007.

August 8 flood

Regular trains on the whole line were stopped due to the August 8 flood. Shenmu line will run normally from June 20, 2010 and Zhushan line will run in the morning from June 26 (Saturday).

As of July 2017, Jiayi fenqi lake has one round trip every day on weekdays and another on holidays. Jiayi fenqi Hujian road was repaired in September 2011 and resumed on January 27, 2014

Fenqihu cross road resumed in July 2017

Due to the serious collapse of pingzhena, the tunnel between Shizi road and Alishan station has been excavated and rerouted, which is expected to be opened to traffic in December 2015. Later, typhoon Dujuan caused the collapse of No.42 Ming tunnel at 58K, and its resumption was far away.

Railway characteristics

Mountaineering Railway: the Shengxing section of Taichung line (now Jiushan line) of Taiwan Railway Administration was the highest point of Taiwan railway trunk line (about 400 meters above sea level), but it was far less than that of Alishan Forest Railway, with an elevation of more than 2000 meters above sea level. The vegetation along the railway varies from tropical forest below 800 meters, subtropical forest between 800 and 1600 meters, and temperate forest above 1600 meters. The maximum gradient of the railway is 6.62%, and the minimum curve radius is 40m.

Spiral around the independent mountain: because the train can not go straight ahead of the independent mountain, it makes a spiral right circle, and finally leaves the independent mountain by a zigzag left circle at the top of the mountain. It is about 5 kilometers around the independent mountain for three circles, and gradually climbs 200 meters through 10 tunnels. In the process of climbing around the mountain, it will see zhangnaoliao station of different sizes for several times.

Alishan hit the wall: from the first lane to Z-shape, first forward and then backward, the driving direction changes back and forth, three times running up the mountain.

The locomotive head is in the downhill direction:

Chinese PinYin : A Li Shan Sen Lin Tie Lu