Western Trunk line () is a railway line of the

Taiwan Railways Administration Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) is a railway operator in Taiwan. It is an agency of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, responsible for managing, maintaining, and running conventional passenger and freight railway services ...

in western

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

. It is by far the busiest line, having served over 171 million passengers in 2016. The total length of the line is 404.5 km. The line is an official classification of physical tracks and does not correspond to particular services. It is connected to

Taichung line The Taichung line (), also known as the Mountain line (), is a line of the Taiwan Railway Administration, which one of two parallel lines in Central Taiwan section offsetting to inland mountain area. It has a total length of 85.5 km, all of w ...

(''mountain line''; ) at Zhunan and

Changhua Changhua ( Hokkien POJ: ''Chiong-hòa'' or ''Chiang-hòa''), officially known as Changhua City, is a county-administered city and the county seat of Changhua County in Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. For many centuries the site was ...

. Many services turn inland to take the Taichung route, then reconnect back to the main line (West Coast line). Train schedules and departure boards mark either ''mountain'' or ''coastal'' () line to indicate the route taken.

History

The original railroad between

Keelung Keelung () or Jilong () (; Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī, POJ: '), officially known as Keelung City, is a major port Provincial city (Taiwan), city situated in the northeastern part of Taiwan. The city is a part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan a ...

and

Twatutia Dadaocheng is an area in Datong District, Taipei, Taiwan. It was also known as Twatutia (a transliteration of the Taiwanese Hokkien ''Tōa-tiū-tiâⁿ''), Daitōtei during Japanese rule, and Tataocheng ( Mandarin) during the Kuomintang era. ...

was completed in 1891. The section between

and

Hsinchu Hsinchu (, Chinese: 新竹, Pinyin: ''Xīnzhú'', Wade–Giles: ''Hsin¹-chu²'') is a city located in northwestern Taiwan. It is the most populous city in Taiwan Province not among the special municipalities, with estimated 450,655 inhabi ...

was finished in 1893. However, in the Japanese era, these sections were all rebuilt by the Government-General of Taiwan as part of its Taiwan Trunk Railway (, ''Jūkan Tetsudō'') project. The Taiwan Trunk Railway was completed in 1908 with route from Kīrun (,

) through Taihoku (,

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

), Shinchiku (,

), Taichū (,

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of T ...

), Tainan (,

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...

), to Takao (,

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City ( Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Ka ...

). The Taiwan Trunk Railway at that time went through all major cities in western

. However, the terrain around Taichū (

) created a significant bottleneck for

rail freight transport Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haule ...

. To resolve this issue, the Government-General of Taiwan decided to build a Coastal Line (, ''Kaigan-sen'') between Chikunan (, Zhunan) and Shōka (,

) to relieve the congestion. The construction of the Coastal Line was started in 1919 and completed in 1922. The Coastal Line then became a part of the main West Coast Line, and the original railway through Taichū (

) was named as a separate line (

). Due to service patterns, the following lines are often collectively referred to as the ''Western main line'' ()

Stations

Notes

References

{{TRA Western Line 1891 establishments in Taiwan TRA routes Railway lines opened in 1891 3 ft 6 in gauge railways in Taiwan