Historic Taiwan train on the way to Welshpool as part of twinning arrangement
An historic 25-ton railway locomotive that spent 50 years hauling heavy logging trains over the highest narrow-gauge line in Asia is being shipped to a heritage railway near Shropshire as part of a special twinning arrangement.
The red-painted Japanese-built DL-34 diesel engine will dock at Liverpool on January 1 after a 10,000km five-week sea voyage from the island of Taiwan in the South China Sea.
It will then be transported by road before spending the next three years pulling special excursion trains on the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway.
The locomotive was built for Taiwan’s Alishan Forest Railway to transport massive cypress logs 86 kilometres from the country’s central mountains to the city of Chiayi.
It was handed over during a ceremony last month at the Taiwanese railway’s HQ in Chiayi to former diplomat Michael Reilly, company secretary of the Welshpool railway.
Mr Reilly, who served as the British Government’s representative in Taiwan for many years and has written a book about the country’s narrow-gauge railways, said: “We are very excited about this.”
The 100-year-old Alishan railway is a miracle of engineering, as the track twists and turns, zigzags and spirals back on itself, across 70 wooden bridges and through 50 tunnels from a height of 2,500 metres.
With the phasing out of logging towards the end of the last century, the spectacular journey between Chiayi and Alishan has become one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions.
Hundreds of people now travel on the trains every day to watch the spectacular “sea of clouds” sunset and sunrise over Jade Mountain, Taiwan’s highest peak at 3,952 metres.
An impressed Mr Reilly said: “The engineering, scenery and operation of the Alishan railway is really quite incredible.
“It has the same 2ft 6ins track gauge and steep gradients as we have at Welshpool and we expect a lot of interest in DL-34 when it begins operating in 2023.
“We hope this loan will further the educational and cultural co-operation between our two railways.”
There are already plans to send some of the Welshpool rolling stock to Taiwan in exchange.
