Alishan lumber workhorse-turned-tourist attraction facing crisis

Trains trundling huge tree trunks down the mountain became a daily sight on Alishan. The logging and transport — with 60 trains running daily, each carrying 10 tons of lumber — continued until 1945 when Japan was defeated and surrendered Taiwan.

During those decades, the Japanese carried away immeasurable amounts of wood, particularly Formosan red cypress and yellow cypress, known in Japanese as hinoki.

Initially, the railway — passing through 50 tunnels and 77 wooden bridges — was used only for transporting lumber and forestry workers. Passenger carriages were not added until 1918.

During the railway's construction, one of the engineers found that a mountain, Daatashan, was blocking the railway's progress. After finding that both tunneling and constructing spirals were impossible, he invented the unprecedented “Z” switches, allowing the locomotives to climb the mountain traveling forward and backward, respectively, on each leg of the “Z.” Four of these switchbacks took the railway from an elevation of 1,827 m to 2,274 m.

According to Lin Chin-kun, chairman of the Alishan Railway Cultural Foundation, the steam locomotives needed to be changed three times during the ascent, from 18-ton locomotives to the heavier and higher horsepower 28-ton engines.

The trains also needed to stop for water four times on the journey from Fenchihu to the top of Alishan, and the “water cranes” used to replenish the boilers can still be seen today at some of the stations along the track. Around 20 of the locomotives were in operation, traveling at a speed of 12 kph on the seven hour trip up the mountain.

In 1963, according to Lin, the Forest Bureau replaced most of the steam locomotives with diesel engines, enabling passenger trains to make the trip in two hours and 50 minutes.

Natural adversaries like floodwater, landslides and earthquakes are not the only factors that have led to the uncertain future of Taiwan's only alpine railway.

The opening of the Alishan Highway in 1982 took away a large number of rail passengers, who took advantage of the cheaper tickets and shorter travel time offered by buses and the railway was eventually privatized under the build-operate transfer model in June 2008.

Business has since picked up steam as a result of the opening of Taiwan to tourists from China, but reactions to the private company's operation of the railway and the services it offers have been mixed.

One bone of contention is that passengers must disembark at one point and climb for about 500 meters because a 70-meter section has not been repaired since its base was washed away by floodwater triggered by two typhoons last September.

Since the further devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot, the private operator has estimated that it will cost at least NT$1.1 billion (US$33.54 million) to fix the damage before trains can run again, not taking into account the time factor.

Transport problems notwithstanding, however,the draw of Alishan's famous Trail of Divine Trees, the sunrise over Jade Mountain, and over 5,000 flowering cherry trees, many of which date back to 1903, is still as strong as ever.

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