Yes, the Taipei terminus (or beginning point, depending on your journey) is about equidistant from Beimen Station and Taipei Main MRT Station (a bit closer to the former). Both are a bit of a walk, especially if encumbered.
My biggest beef is with the express trains, which appear to have been designed by someone who has never taken a train before! The seats are packed together, with ram rod barriers at the feet (something utterly bizarre–I have never seen a train set up like this, anywhere). I am relatively tall, and I can just get a glimpse out the windows, which are far higher up than I have seen on any other train. Lots of odd stuff in a system that just opened but already looks dated (though not the stations proper, which look quite good).
really? if you miss one your wait plus journey time could be around 50 minutes… which is quicker than the slow one so its probably worth waiting for. i’ll see how it is next time anyway. wasn’t impressed with the slow one, the views are pretty rough too for the second leg of the trip. the area around the new station is pretty nice though, when its finished i think the area will be much improved from what was there before.
Welll going from
-a) not having a train link to having a train link
B)link being under 40 mins
C) MRT line into suburbs
Is good pretty compared to the absence of choices before, especially when there’s bad weather or its rush hour.
Lots of foreign tourists and visitors prefer taking the airport trains.
Now c) is the clincher because you can get to Linkou and CGU and CGUH and Taoyuan city etc. When the circle line is in operation it will be more convenient for a lot of folks to use if they so choose.
Now there is one other drawback about that because the ticket price for commuters has been set a lot higher than the Taipei MRT.
IDK what kind of people have business meetings in the middle of nowhere. For example, the ones for Changhua and Tainan are in the middle of rural ag land. I kind of had a feeling it was for business people but still a weird place to have them. But it explains why the free shuttles don’t stop at tourist attractions. I tried to use it for day trip tourism and was only able to go to Zuoying. I agree that the price is a rip off. I paid 100 US for a round trip ticket. For that price I could’ve taken a tour or hired a cab for 8 hours. If I had more time I would’ve just taken the regular train. But I agree that TRA is also a rip off, especially with the amount of travel time and comfort level. I in general found Taiwan a tedious place to get around mainly due to lack of direct routes, but as you said they weren’t designed for tourists. I DO think it’s strange HSR serves 3 stations in Taipei but only one in Kaohsiung area. I think the government just wanted to develop worthless land.
Express and Commuter trains run alternately, every 15 minutes each. Express trains only stop at the airport (Terminal 1 and 2), Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, New Taipei Industrial Park, and Taipei Main Station
The HSR is not cheap but it’s no rip-off. It’s very comfortable and extremely fast and reliable point to point travel. Great service in stations and on train.
Lots of business travelers including me have used it regularly and are very satisfied.
If you don’t like it take a bus or train for five hours or more from Taipei to Kaohsiung. I have travelled on China’s high speed rail system and it sucks balls compared to Taiwans.
Most countries don’t even have a decent train service let alone a high speed train!
Suggest you travel more to understand meaning of term ‘rip-off’.
I don’t know about that planbit it would make sense.
There is a review being done to see if they could extend it to Pingdong which would be nice for those folks. They considered running it along the existing line but in practice it wouldoffer no real advantafe to current setup.
I tend think the train is cheap even at full fare compared other like trains worldwide. In Japan it’s double for the same distance, and the New York- Washington DC high speed rail can be triple or more (US$120+ is what I paid on Amtrak).
HSR and Lukang? Ha, that’s a good one … The reason why Lukang is so badly connected is a historical one. We as residents here in Lukang got to know a little bit of the story behind it.
The people in Lukang have always been verrry traditional and conservative: the city was known for 不見天，不見地，不見女人 (“don’t see the sky” because of the narrow streets and the roofs, “don’t see the ground” because of the red floor tiles in the old part of the city and “don’t see women” because they had to stay indoors regarding machismo - the Lukang Folk Arts Museum has nice bw-pictures from back in the days).
Some say the people of Lukang has been afraid that certain infrastructure projects could end up in getting more “outsiders” in here - you know, the ones that do not speak the “real and authentic” Taiwanese/Min-Nan (Lukang boasts to have the original dialect, even though the much bigger Tainan claims the same). So when the railroads have been planned (by the Japanese, I guess?), Lukang refused to get connected, even though they already lost the original port as well as the deer skin trade with Mainland China (Lukang 鹿港 means Deer Port) and thus could use some kind of economical push.
Well, never mind. The tourists are flooding the narrow streets now nevertheless. But traffic is a mess here.