Alishan forestry railway transferred to private operator

The Forestry Bureau under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture transferred the railway operation right to the Hungtu Construction Co., which won a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project that was passed in 2006 to privatize the management of the railway for the next 30 years.

Chen Hong-yi, chairman of Hungtu, said that it is a long way to go and a great responsibility to assume for his company to undertake the BOT project for the Alishan Forestry Railway. “No matter how long the way is, we have the confidence and sincerity to keep the ball rolling in a responsible way,” Chen said.

Starting yesterday through June 24, the forestry railway will be open to the public free of charge to celebrate the launch of the BOT project.

During the inauguration ceremony, residents of the Alishan and environmental protection groups protested the transfer of the operation right to a private company by lying on the rails, trying to block the movement of the trains, but they were soon driven away by police.

Yen Jen-teh, director of the Forestry Bureau, told the protesters that the entire BOT project for the Alishan Forestry Railway is a legal one.

But officials with the Chiayi Forest District Office, which has operated the forestry railway for over 60 years, were quite upset about the transfer of the operating right to a private firm, and therefore chose to be absent from yesterday’s ceremony held to officially launch the BOT project.

Under the project, worth NT$1.7 billion (US$56 million), Hungtu is contracted to operate the railway, including the stations along the route. It also won the contract to build a five-star hotel on 2.2 hectares of state-owned land near Jhaoping Station, the last stop of the Alishan line, which is the main line of the network.

The private company has also the right to develop 0.9 hectares of land surrounding Peimen Station in Chiayi City, for the construction of another hotel.

The Alishan Forestry Railway is an 86km narrow gauge railway network running up to and throughout the popular mountain resort of Alishan. It was originally constructed by the Japanese colonial government in 1912 to facilitate the logging of cypress and other lumber, but today the line caters mostly to tourists.

In 2003, 17 people were killed and 156 injured when a train derailed near Alishan Station.

The area attracts nearly 900,000 local and foreign visitors every year.

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