High-speed Line

The 349.5 km long high-speed line between Nangang in the east of Taipei and Zuoying (a northern suburb of Kaohsiung) was built and is operated by a private consortium; the total costs amounted to 18 billion US dollars. The route, which opened on January 5, 2007, runs largely through the densely populated plains on the west coast and through the foothills of the high mountain ranges that cross Taiwan from north to south. In terms of infrastructure and rolling stock, the HGV route is based on the Japanese Shinkansen; the route is normal gauge and electrified with 25kV / 60Hz. The trains run at up to 300 km / h, the fastest continuous trains take 105 minutes, during the day the trains usually run every 10 minutes. Most of the train stations are relatively far away from the city centre; some of them are connected to public transport by metro lines (Kaohsiung) or conventional rail lines (Tainan, Hsinchu). An underground extension to Kaohsiung Central Station is planned at the southern end. In 2019, 67 million passengers used the trains; on the peak day, September 15, 2019, 318,000 passengers were carried. The average delay of the trains is 6s. The longest outage (apart from severe earthquakes) occurred on April 25, 2013, when operations had to be stopped for four hours due to signal interference!

73% of the 349km long route in standard gauge runs on bridges (252km), 18% in tunnels (63km) and 9% on dams / cuts (30km). The route between Changhua and Zuoying lies on a 157km long bridge, at the time the longest bridge in the world, before it was replaced in 2010 by a 6km longer bridge on the Beijing - Shanghai high-speed rail link. The longest tunnel, apart from the 14 km long underground course in the urban area of Taipei, is the 7.3 km long Pa-ghuashan tunnel. Except for very short sections in stations with gravel, the tracks are laid continuously on a solid track, the minimum curve radius is 6.25 km, the maximum gradient 3.5%. With the exception of the subway-like section Nangang - Banqiao in the urban area of Taipei, where the maximum speed is 130 km / h, the route is designed for 350 km / h, whereby in normal operation usually only a maximum of 300 km / h is driven. Similar to Japan, special sensors secure rail operations in the event of an earthquake (trains stop immediately), bridges and tunnels are made earthquake-proof as far as possible. There are a total of twelve stations on the route, more are planned, but this is also causing discussions. Express trains only stop in Nangang, Taipei and Zuoying. Other trains stop at more stations, but can rarely run the maximum speed as a result. But provincial politicians made the construction of the numerous train stations a condition.

Figure 1: This map shows the high speed line between Taipei and Kaohsiung in pink. The TRA lines in operation are shown in dark grey (Terrain by Stamen.com)

Figure 2: Shinkansen train sets at Zuoying station

Figure 3: Inside Zuoying station