Taiwan Travel – Taiwan High-Speed Rail (THSR)
Having experienced travel on a bullet train both in South Korea and Japan, I was excited to travel on the Taiwan High-Speed Rail (THSR).
The Taiwanese bullet train travels at speeds up to 300 km/hr (186 miles/hr) and the high-speed route runs along the western coast of Taiwan connecting the capital city Taipei with all the major cities in Taiwan.
We’d arrived at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport in the early morning.
Our first mission was to collect our Easy Cards and phone SIMs package from (affiliate link) the Klook Office.
We’d pre-ordered our package to make travelling around Taiwan on various means of transport an easy one-swipe task.
Find out more from Kook about Easy Cards and THSR Tourist Rail Passes in my post Should I Buy An Easy Card?
OUR TAIWAN ITINERARY
Our planned itinerary for Taiwan meant that on arrival we were looking to travel from Taipei Airport to city on the Airport MRT Express Train to Taipei Main Station (journey time 40 mins).
From Taipei Main Station we’d then take a THSR ‘bullet train’ south (journey time 1 hour) to explore the island’s midpoint city of Taichung for a few days.
There are three types of THSR tickets available: business car, standard car and non-reserved car.
Business and standard tickets both have reserved seats.
Find out about train times on THSR Taiwan bullet train timetable
SOUTH TO TAICHUNG & KAOHSIUNG
It’s comforting to note that in Taiwan there are only two THSR lines – north bound and south bound – so it’s very hard to get it wrong. You simply need to make sure you choose the right direction before boarding!
After exploring Taichung City we were planning on continuing on to the southern tip of Taiwan to the port city of Kaohsiung for a few days.
NORTH TO TAIPEI
Then, from Kaohsiung we’d return to Taipei on the northern THSR bullet train.
Taking the entire route takes 2 hrs and 20mins.
We arrived back on Taipei in time for The Lantern Festival!
Find out more about THSR Taiwan bullet train timetable.
THSR TAIWAN BULLET TRAIN ROUTE
Along the high speed rail networks route there are twelve THSR stations: From the northern tip: Nangang, Taipei, Banqiao, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan and Zuoying at the furthest southern tip of Taiwan.
All these stations are well connected to all other modes of transportation like the local trains and those on the standard metro network as well as buses.
This makes Taiwan one of the easiest, most energy efficient, cost effective, and most environmental viable counties, on which to travel on public transport.
The trains are also a pleasure to ride because not only are they fast and efficient and always on time, they are comfortable with aircraft style seats, spotlessly clean, and with services such as Wi-Fi, power outlets, and food and beverage options onboard.
As for the term bullet train, it is often used as a generic term to describe high-speed trains with a streamlined design, particularly those that resemble the iconic Shinkansen trains of Japan.
Interestingly, the Taiwan trains also utilises Japanese Shinkansen Bullet Train technology, however, they are built to European safety standards and adapted to Taiwan’s climate.
THSR INTERESTING FACTS
THSR opened on January 5 2007.
THSR is the shortest high-speed train route in the world.
The length of the THSR route is 345 km/214 miles.
Each high-speed train travels with 12 soundproofed cars.
On route there are 48 tunnels. The longest is 7.36 km/4.6 miles.
The THSR train passes through 14 cities and 77 towns.
THSR is the longest continuously elevated railway in the world as just 9% of the track was built on the ground.
Total cost of construction so far is around 14.5 billion US$.
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