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Taiwan Railway History
Taiwan railway systems were constructed in early years of Kuang Hsu period of Ching Dynasty upon plea by the Taiwan Govemor Liu Ming Chuan 109 years ago.
In the 20th year of Guang Shue ( 1894 A.D. ), Ching Empire severed Taiwan to Japan and Taiwn became the colony of Japan. Used railway materials were dismentled from Japanese domestic lines and shipped to Taiwan to extend various lines so as to deprive natural resources of Tainwan. Therefore, the loading capacities of the bridges along the lines differs from place to place and the railway cars could not go through the whole line.
After ther Restoration from the war with Japanese, the railroads in Taiwan were broken into pieces and privation everywhere owing to the bombardment by the allied forces. Furthermore, with the scarcity of materials plus the damages by typhoons and floods, the railroads were seriously damaged. At that time, the Japanese TRA personnels returned from Japan said that the Taiwan railway will be paralyzed within six months. This was not too exaggerated. Fortunately, the railway personnels from Mainland China and with locals overcome all of the obstacles and maintained the railway to go through and later on the railway systems were gradually trimmed and extended according to the priorities.
During Recent years, with the prosperity of the society and the fast growing of the industries and business, TRA saw many progresses and improvements such as from steam to diesel to electrical locomotives and modernization.