• Once a self-sufficient community
  • Taiwan's economic export value accounts for the largest proportion
  • Departing from an abandoned railway
  • With the introduction of local people
  • Let's understand the history of Taiwan Sugar
Sugar mill locomotive

Retired train that used to transport sugar cane

Old banyan tree

Old banyan tree accompanied Pingtung sugar factory

Shinpei Torii

Japanese engineer built a water collection corridor

Taitang County People's Park

The transformed Park is full of amazing designs

Railway Development

History of Developments

Taiwan's sugar industry railway is a very important part in the development of Taiwan's sugar industry. Without the sugar industry railway, the transportation of sugar cane and other raw materials to the factory is very time-consuming and labored, because if only cattle are used to pull carts or manpower to transport, the speed and load are not as fast as the railway. After the sino-japanese war in 1894-1895, China ceded penghu and Taiwan to Japan. At the beginning of Japan's takeover of Taiwan, due to Japan's domestic economic depression and lack of funds from the governor's office, no funds were attracted for investment. 。

After 1905, the Japanese sugar industry entered Taiwan on a large scale, prompting private railway companies to invest in Taiwan and build sugar railway tracks. In the beginning, there were no locomotives running on the railway, but only carts driven by water buffalo or pushed by human power. In 1907, qiaotou sugar factory began to build a large raw material line, and in November of that year, the steam train was running on the railway, responsible for transporting raw materials. The incentive to invest in railways is that trains come faster and work longer than humans or animals. At that time, the main purpose was to transport sugar cane to factories for processing, so the early routes were all around the sugar-making stations, and each of the sugar-making stations would not be connected by railway, would be separated from each other and would not connect even if they were adjacent to each other.。

Boom and bust

On May 20, 1909, the earliest operation of long-term transport of sugar iron was the "xinying to inshore" route for sugar production at the salt water port, which later became the sack line. After the end of the second world war, the Taiwan sugar company receive Taiwan sugar around the railway, and connect all sugar iron, also build the new route, now gradually forming railway line and business lines also very prosperous at that time, heyday in 1958 reached more than 60000 people, every day route article 41, about 675 km, there are about 600 flights a day, but the development of township roads began to highway passenger transport railway businessline severely impact the sugar, formally announced the sugar railway 1981 into history, affected by not only business line at the same time, raw material line also hit the original freight function, Now only Ma-Gong-Cuo line at Hu-Wei Sugar Factory is still in operation. 。

Main tools

Locomotives

A locomotive is the vehicle that pulls the whole train. Steam locomotives were mainly used in the Japanese colonial period and the early period of the republic of China. Because of their slow speed, steam locomotives were gradually eliminated by diesel locomotives. During the period of Japanese rule, the number of vehicles was not uniform because they were owned by the sugar factory. After the end of the second world war, tx took over. Since it was necessary to purchase Belgian steam locomotive and downwind diesel locomotive, all the vehicle Numbers were unified. Later Taiwan postwar homemade FWD locomotive and GMC locomotive joined the Taiwan sugar railway, since 1977, due to insufficient steam locomotive traction, so he switched to DE ma brand diesel locomotive to substitute, sugar after iron and purchase a lot of internal combustion engine car, have both the Brookville Dieseland the Golden Horse of the USA, Japan's Hitachi, Germany's Diema.

Guest Train

There are 2 kinds of Guest trains. One is diesel locomotives motivated with power of their own, the other kind is pulled by locomotives .But later, when the sugar-iron part was developed for sightseeing, there were also guest trains made of sugar-cane wagons with fences around them and benches in the middle.。

Wagons

There are two kinds of trucks mainly used to carry sugar cane in the sugar mill railway, namely the sugarcane box truck and the sugarcane truck. These trucks are used to carry sugar cane. The difference lies in that there is no fence around the sugarcane box truck, while the sugarcane wagon is surrounded by iron wire.。