Alishan Forestry Railway

[Nick_Burman]

 

Short Japanese documentary about the Alishan Forestry Railway. The most interesting part of the film though is right at the beginning whith a short sequence of a Shay scurrying along with a train of empty Taiwan Sugar Corporation cane cars rather than the expected log cars. Some time ago I had a map of the sugar lines in Taiwan which indicated a connection between TSC and Alishan trackage, however this confirms that both railways did connect.

 

Cheers Nicholas

[ben_issacs]

Nick, 

There's no doubt that if you were someone who was fascinated by moving machinery, the Shay loco would give you great value for your money!

Three sets of cylinders with exposed crank shaft and valve gear, side drive shafts, universal and telescopic joints and exposed bevel gears, all flailing about madly, and the whole thing only doing about ten miles per hour, if that!

But, this was only obvious if you were on the right hand side of the engine, the left hand side was clear of all this machinery, a disappointment!

And all of this along with the giant funnels that the Shays had, something that would more suit a tugboat than a locomotive!

In Japanese times, Alishan was Arishan, no 'L' sound in the Japanese language.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

[ben_issacs]

Folks and Nick.

In my post about Alishan, I made an error in its Japanese name it  should be 'Arisan', not 'Arishan' as I originally wrote!

Dumbo, Dumbo me!

Regards, 

Bill,

Melbourne.

 

[ben_issacs]

Nick, 

with your interest in Taiwan's railways, it'd be great if you could get a copy of 'Rails to the Setting Sun' by Charles S. Small, published in 1971 by Kigei Publishing Co. Tokyo, no apparent ISBN.

It covers a selection of the smaller and lesser know railways in various parts of the world, including Taiwan.

The Taiwan section covers the TRA system, AliShan, sugar tramways,  with a map of these showing all the various companies before Taiwan Sugar Corp. came into being, AliShan, and a small colliery line.

Could be a collector's item and hard to get a copy.

It also has a section on Spain.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

[Railtunes]

Another Charles S. Small volume on Taiwan's really narrow gauge railways is "Rails to the Mines, Taiwan's Forgotten Railways". It documents mainly the coal mine railways, both human and locomotive powered, with many good black and white photographs. Originally published in 1978 by Railroad Monographs of Greenwich, CT, it has been reprinted in 2006 by Railhead Publications, Canton Ohio 44706. I picked up a copy at my local hobby shop, The Train Shop in San Jose, California just a couple months ago.

Paul Ingraham, AsiaNRail