why not use japan as an example? or how about those leaning HSRs that can be used on the same track so you don’t need to build a special HSR track. i don’t think taiwan is the best example of HSR.
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Bird Blood Bath (Pollock, 2020). Fine art.
About a month after you posted this, news broke of the (planned?) extension to Yilan:
According to the article, the government is “planning” to do this extension, but it looks to me like they still have quite a few steps to go through before it’s a sure thing, and from the point when construction actually starts, it’ll take another 9-10 years. The Xueshan Tunnel took 15 years to build, so 9-10 years could actually be a little bit of magical thinking. Or maybe tunneling technology has improved a lot since the 90s when they started the tunnel. I don’t know.
As someone who commutes back and forth from Yilan regularly, I really think Yilan HSR is a great idea. The Xueshan Tunnel is totally inadequate for travel to Yilan, it’s constantly backed up. The TRA has limited capacity and a round-about route, meaning ticket prices are quite high since they charge by the km. It wouldn’t make sense to lower the prices either, because demand is already so high on the limited capacity of express trains that they run. It’s usually impossible to get tickets unless you plan way ahead. So most of the time I just take the bus and risk the traffic situation.
With HSR there would be ample seating capacity, fast travel times, and probably pretty reasonably priced tickets. I’m guessing they’d land on somewhere around $200 one way full fare, which is more than the bus but around the same as TRA. They can price competitively with TRA because the HSR trains have so much more capacity so overall revenue will be much higher.
For people who say HSR to Yilan would “ruin” Yilan, come on, Yilan is already ruined. It has been ruined since the tunnel opened. All that HSR does is get polluting traffic off the road and gives people a more reliable, faster way to get to Taipei and points along the West Coast. It also makes the tunnel itself more reliable (e.g. less traffic) for people who, for whatever reason, still need to use it after HSR starts.
What I’m wondering is where they would put the station? I am guessing that the land directly east of the Yilan TRA station will be the spot. This land is currently parking lots and a hastily built one-story bus station. They could put an HSR terminal there and enable fast transfers with TRA services to Luodong (or ‘Lotung’ as I like to call it) and Hualien and other points south. It would be smart to rebuild the Yilan TRA station at the same time, as it’s kind of a mess and wouldn’t serve HSR transfers very well in its current state.
IMO - no real reason to ever extend HSR to Hualien, at least not in my lifetime. HSR to Yilan with a transfer to TRA to get to Hualien will work really well, as the Yilan to Hualien section of TRA track (known as the North Link Line) is quite modern. It was finished in 1980 and is double tracked with 150km/h operation, so they could run a lot of Puyouma’s on that section if HSR went to Yilan. Certainly enough Puyouma’s to meet demand.
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I am always skeptical of these proposed extensions. Ping-dong, Yi-lan. Won’t this just mess up the HSR schedule? Fewer trains on the tracks at the same time? Earliest trains will be even later than now, latest trains departing too early to make the connection from the airport/MRT to TaoYuan (for us Southerners).
I think they should build a line from Hualien to Taichung.
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Have they even started completing the normal speed train loop? or extending the lines into Kending?
The last section is being electrified now to Taidong . There’s no plan to run trains to Kending that I’m aware of.
The route for the controversial HSR extension to Pingtung has I believe already been approved. None of the options considered included Kenting.
Guy
More investment for the future, as Taiwan’s HSR moves forward to purchase 12 sets of new shinkansen trains from Japan. The new trains will be faster than the current trains and supposedly more energy efficient. 
These new trains will reportedly enter service in 2027 at the earliest.
If anyone has seen images of these new puppies, please post them if you can.
Guy
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