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Service on Alishan railway expected to resume in full next year
2010/06/19 21:14:20 |
Taipei, June 19 (CNA) The government will do its best to fix all 41 sections of the Alishan alpine railway that were damaged during Typhoon Morakot last year, and is hoping to resume full service on the line before the end of 2011, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said Saturday.
"We hope service on the railway will be resumed in time for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China next year," said COA Minister Chen Wu-hsiung.
At a ceremony held at the Alishan station in Chiayi County to mark the resumption of service on two branch sections of the forest railway, Chen described the typhoon damage as "God's test."
In the next phase of repairs, the engineers and technicians must work to prevent soil erosion on the line, he said.
Chen sounded the whistle on an old steam-powered locomotive to launch the run to Zhushan, the last stop on the 6.2 km-long Zhushan Sunrise-Watching Line which operates at an altitude of 2,216 to 2,451 meters.
The Divine Tree Line, which runs between the Alishan station and a group of valuable Formosan Cypress trees on Mountain Ali, was also reopened in the first phase of restoration work on the railway.
Alishan was once Taiwan's most popular tourist destination, with visitors flocking to see the "Five Wonders" -- the sea of clouds, the sunrise, the sunset, the mountain-climbing railway's unique "Z" switchbacks and spirals that are a marvel of engineering, and the forests through which the railway line winds, ranging from tropical to temperate and finally alpine.
However, the alpine railway suffered massive damage due to flooding and landslides caused by Typhoon Morakot last August. It tracks were washed away or damaged in more than 400 places and the line had to be closed, which resulted in a drastic drop in the number of visitors to the area.
The COA Forestry Bureau terminated its contract with the Hungtu Alishan International Development Co. in April after the private company, which won the right to operate the railway on a BOT model in 2008, made it clear that it could not fix the damaged railway. (By Chiang Chun-liang and Elizabeth Hsu) enditem /pc
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