Mass tourism at Ping Hsi Branch Railway

A ride with the Ping His Branch Railway line train is described everywhere as a scenic route.

It sure appealed a lot to me.

On saturdays it could be a bit more crowded, but the frequency of the train schedule was better, so we decided to go on a saturday anyways. How bad could it be, right?

I considered not taking the train, but doing the trip with a private taxi instead (no idea about the price), but since the ride itself was scenic, it looked like an essential and fun part of this day trip.

First we took the MRT to Taipei Main Station. There we bought train tickets to Ruifang. A bit of a challenge, since not many people speak english in Taiwan. But we succeeded quite fast. 
We bought tickets for the Ping Hsi Branch Railway there at the same time.

Totally up north east on this map, you see Taipei, Ruifang, and then a dead end track going inward. That dead end track is the Ping Hsi Branch Railway.

Our tickets said 'no seats', so we thought that that meant that this train had no reserved seats.

WRONG! It meant that WE had no reserved seats, so we had to stand for 50 minutes in a very crowded train. And that was just the beginning...

The nicely decorated PHBR train arrived. All aboard....!

The platform is empty here, but we often waited very long. And by the time the train arrived the platform was overflowing with people.

See how crammed the train is?

Like I said: we stood packed like sardines in a can:-(

So although the route undoubtedly was scenic.....

.....we saw absolutely nothing from that. 

On that very hot day we stood -in total- five long hours, packed as sardines in a can, in trains. We did not succeed to get a seat anywhere even once and our hips, knees and backs have been hurting us for days afterwards.

In hindsight we should have opted for a private taxi to avoid all this waiting and backbreaking standing up.

But enough wining and complaining. 

Maybe on other days, times and seasons the ride is far less crowded. And it is kinda cool how the tracks go right through the small villages along the way.

So let's look at the different stops along the way. 

What is there to do and see? How is the ambiance? It is worthwhile?
You will find the answers to these questions in my upcoming posts about this unique railway.