It’s not far from Pingtung City Centre (TRA Station) but Pingtung city is not really a big city and many people in Pingtung shop and work in Kaoshuing which is 15-40 min. drive for most people in Pingtung City so not sure the reason for this other than benefit a few people. The Bullet train station location listed in Pingtung is near the Kaoshuing-Pingtung City line, and is already connected by the new underground Metro with like a new $US billion dollar TRA line. It seems this extension to me not worth the money spent, but hey it looks good. The new station would be better if it were farther south instead of being so near Kaoshuing as it looks now.
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Yep agreed if there was one closer to Hengchun that would be amazing.
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It’s for the NS connection.
Yes, it is. It will be interesting to see how they schedule the trains. If the fastest trains (one/two stops) do not serve Pingtung I still think a few people will use the current Kaoshuing station as now a few people in Tainan backtrack to take the faster trains. I would rather see the billions in dollars spent on upgrading the National Uni’s in Pingtung, as the Uni’s are key in the Hsinchu and Tainan Science/Tech Parks doing well as well the king of Tech centres, Silicon Valley (ie Stanford + Cal/ UC Berk).
Nice thought but, Pingtung is the breadbasket. Start tech there and you’ll have your eggplant tasting like circuit boards. There’s an aging power plant in Hengchun that’ll be tapped out necessitating a coal or gas burner which’ll be more expenses. Jobs, sure, but expensive and grafty. This THSR grift is the latest scam of those real estate twats. They’ve tapped out the Taipei/Taichung/Tainan/Kaohsiung money under the mattress folks and are moving their game on to the hold-outs in farmsville.
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I presume there is also (in addition to the real estate speculation game) a political element here—to ensure that every county (not including Hualien / Taitung, or of course the outlying islands) gets an HSR station regardless of whether it is practical or economical to do so. Hence the mushrooming of stations in Miaoli, Changhua, Yunlin…
Guy
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Due to Taiwan’s plummeting pop and out migration from the South it doesn’t make sense to place a HSR station there economically but the graft possibilities are endless indeed.
Horseshit realtor sponsored graft scheme.
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4 years later, they almost have a plan
Compared to other parts of the world, that’s already really fast (looking at you, Germany…) 
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Such a pity the regular train line isn’t extended down to Kenting, would be a fraction of the cost.
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LOOKING AT YOU CANADA.
Or California. Or Texas (which may be likely to finish first in this deadbeat North American race lol).
Guy
I have never heard of any government in Canada considering high speed rail. And I can’t see there being enough demand to justify the cost. Taiwan is tiny, and they have a lot of people. It makes sense here.
Even Air Canada (!!!) is behind new plans to develop rapid rail (not THSR quality) connecting the Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal to Quebec City corridor. Even they realize the existing way of doing things is dumb.
Guy
I’ve taken the train from Ottawa to Toronto, and from Ottawa to Montreal. Seems unlikely any governments would help finance a new train run by a terrible airline
Ottawa is dumping money into local trains run by a terrible transit authority, and wants provincial and federal money to clean up the mess
Here’s my take on the Canadian situation, such as it is.
Does Ottawa pay the slightest attention to world class transportation systems in Asia including the ones we have in Taiwan? No it does not, it is ignorant and shrugs its shoulders while grinning stupidly (OK I invented that last part).
However does Ottawa pay attention to Europe? Apparently so! France has banned short haul domestic flights accelerating the link ups between longer flights into France and the rail system. I think Ottawa has clued in based on what’s happening there. Changes to the rail system in Canada mentioned above would happen in the mid-2030s at the earliest. Better late than never? We’ll see how this turns out.
Guy