The Taiwan Sugar Railways is a

industrial railway An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British ra ...

operated by the

Taiwan Sugar Corporation Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC; ; pinyin: ''Táiwān Tángyè Gōngsī'') or Taisugar (; pinyin: ''Táitáng'') is a state-run enterprise of Taiwan, with headquarters in Tainan City. History The corporation was established on 1 May 1946 by the ...

. The railway was primarily used in the production of

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

by transporting

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

to mills, but some lines also provided passenger service. At its height, the Sugar Railways had an extensive network spanning of track, but since the Kuomintang's takeover of Taiwan in 1949, most of the infrastructure has been abolished and removed. The only line still used to carry sugarcane today is the Magongcuo Line in

Huwei, Yunlin Huwei Township () is an urban township in Yunlin County, Taiwan. It has a population of about 70,269. Name In the 17th century, during the Dutch era, '' Favorolang'' was one of the largest and most powerful aboriginal villages in Taiwan. Th ...

, though many other lines are preserved as

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

History

Taiwan 2009 GuangFu Sugar Factory Historical Train Exhibition RD 6173

The Sugar Railways were initially constructed by Meiji Sugar Co., Ltd. during Japanese rule in the early 20th century and continued to operate well into the 1990s under the management of the

. During its peak, the Sugar Railways included over 3000 km of track though by 2003 only 240 km remained. Regular passenger service was discontinued in 1982 as the need for train service to rural areas dwindled with the increasing urbanization of Taiwan and the dominance of highways. More lines were closed in the 1990s as the importance of the sugar industry decreased. Generally the remaining lines are only in operation during the sugarcane harvest season. With domestic sugarcane production dwindling in recent years, rail operations have been sporadic. Some short distance train services resumed in 2003, now mostly catering to

tourists Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mo ...

and residents wishing to relive childhood memories.

Operations

Typically, most of the Sugar Railway lines centered on the many sugar mills in southern and central Taiwan, radiating outwards through sugarcane fields and small towns. Most of the lines were also linked with stations shared with the main railway lines allowing passengers to transfer to long distance trains. Trains carrying sugarcane and passengers ran along the Sugar Railway lines at relatively slow speeds of roughly 10 km/h. Locomotives were initially

steam powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

, but by the late 1970s the railway had converted to small

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

References

External links

Taiwan Sugar Corporation
(English)

{{Sugar, state=collapsed Former buildings and structures in Taiwan History of sugar Sugar mill railways 2 ft 6 in gauge railways in Taiwan

History

Operations

See also

References

External links