Riding the High Speed Rail in Taiwan
Posted by Stephen on
June 13, 2007
Taiwan has one of the most advanced High Speed Rail Systems in the world. It is also known as the Taiwan HSR. I had a chance to ride it when I was invited to check out the new Science Park in Tainan, Taiwan. The train gets up to 300 KM/h on the long stretches as it rockets along the plush green landscape. The train is pretty long so it’s pretty amazing how fast it can get going. You can almost feel yourself pushing into the seats as the train picks up speed. Check out the video below…
The speed of the train as well as weather and the next stop is always shown at the front of each car. The train slows down in advance of the stops that it comes across. It goes through several tunnels at full speed and rides high above the greenery. I wonder how they got permission to put the track up where they put it. Sometimes it was smack dab in the middle of a rice field or through a neighbourhood. I assume people just live with it instead of protesting and making a fuss about it. Or perhaps to welcome progress is glorious. Sort of like how to get rich is glorious in China.
The cabins are spacious and very clean. In between the cars there are vending machines and washrooms. One thing I found out that was kind of cool was that when the train changes direction, the staff onboard will actually goes through the train and rotates whole rows of seats around so that you are always facing the right direction. The cars are all cleaned and emptied of garbage at the end of each run. I found that out when I saw people just leaving their crap in the seat pockets. At about $1250 NT dollars, it isn’t the cheapest way to see Taiwan, but it certainly gets you there in style and wickedly fast.
Looks a lot better than the public rail system used in the US. Our area has been taking about it for year, and has been meet with a lot of dissent. Looks like the hicks around here prefer gas guzzling trucks
People always fight progress.
The video no longer works btw.
yeah the video does not work, looks like a sweet train though
The video seems to be working fine for me right now. BTW, what kind of video camera do you have?
That train looks much nicer than the Metra trains we have here or the subway in the city, although those are much cheaper as well.
Yeah, the video might have been screwed up by YouTube, but it is working fine now.
I’m just using my Panasonic FX-9 Digital Camera to capture that.
Holy crap thats a long train…specially for 300 km/h!