High speed rail throws another blow to domestic Taiwanese airlines. The Taiwan High Speed Rail, or ?? (pronounced: gao tie) as locals know it by, will add an additional eight trains in each direction, augmenting the frequency to 40 trains per day. Throughout the day, there are three trains per hour, making rail travel even more appealing for those with inflexible schedules. However, most of the Taiwan High Speed Rail stations are not close to the city centres, except for in the capital Taipei, where extensive tunneling was required to connect the bullet train tracks to the main train station. Bullet train stations are usually twenty minutes away from the city centres and unlike Europe, high speed lines never use tracks from other services. Taiwan’s high speed rail system connects Taipei, in the north, with Zuoying, a town near the southern city of Kaohsiung in one hour and 36 minutes on a skip-stop train, or two hours on an all-stops train, slicing almost three hours off the travel time on a local train.
Read on after the jump.
A flight from Taipei’s Songshan Airport (which is actually in Taipei itself) to Kaohsiung International Airport takes 50 minutes, but the country’s airline China Airlines only offers six flights per day. China Airlines has already ceased service to Taichung, a city in the middle of Taiwan, because of the high speed rail.
The Taiwan High Speed Rail uses infrastructure modeled after of Japan’s Shinkansen. The 700T type trains, are based on the newest models of the Shinkansen. Trains travel up to 300 km / h and run mostly on elevated rails and through tunnels.
The high speed rail system is not affiliated with the Taiwan Railway Administration that runs all other rail services, which is why the bullet trains never switch onto local tracks to stop in the city centres. Local trains, though, are still very appealing because of the low cost. For example, tickets for the Taipei to Taichung local train are 200 Taiwan dollars (about seven USD), compared to 700 Taiwan dollars (23 USD) on a high speed train, but it takes more than an hour longer. Local trains still weave through mountains and rice fields and stop at small towns on the way. 
Read about high speed rail in Europe. Click here for the post about the Eurostar.
Links:
Taiwan High Speed Rail Official Site
Video by Alexander Lew. Quicktime video player recommended for viewing. Download the video here (.mov). It’s the same video as above.
Photo: "Kiss and Ride" drop-off zone at a high speed rail station. Photo by Alexander Lew.
