Friday, November 14, 2014

Taiwan Trip 2014 - Day 4 - Making my way from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang Station and to Shifen Station by Train

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST MY PHOTOS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. AS THIS IS A POPULAR POST, MANY BLOGGERS HAVE BEEN STEALING MY PHOTOS AND CORP OFF MY BLOG TITLE TO MAKE THE PHOTOS AS IF IT BELONGS TO THEM. THEY HAD SINCE REMOVED AND APOLOGISED AFTER I EMAILED THEM. IF THEY DO NOT REMOVED OR CONTINUED WITH THEIR DISGUSTING STEALING, I WILL NOT HESITATE TO POST THEIR BLOG PROFILE TO REVEAL THEIR IDENTITY.

PHOTOS AND INFORMATION ARE POSTED HERE FOR THE REASON TO SHARE WITH FELLOW TRAVELLERS AND I SPEND A LOT OF TIME TAKING PHOTOS AND RESEARCHING ALL THE INFORMATION, SO PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK AND NOT STEAL MY WORKS.

This is the second time I am taking the train from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang Station. You can view more information and photos from my previous trip.

Information on How to go to Ruifang Station from Taipei Main Station, please visit this article from my 2011 Taipei trip.

For this 2014 Taiwan Trip, I found out that it was not necessary to visit the big TRA ticketing office on the ground floor of Tapei Main Station to purchase TRA train tickets to Ruifang Station(which was what I did in my 2011 Taiwan Trip), as I spotted a TRA Ticketing Office in the basement near the MRT Ticketing office in the Taipei MRT Station. Noted the Blue lettering TRA TICKETING above the counter staff.

The Train time table - is a little hard to understand. As I had travelled by train to Ruifang Station before, I just asked the cashier for the next Tzechiang's train to Ruifang Station (Not to worry about communication problem, some of the staff can speak English). I did not want to take the Kuo Kuang's Train to Ruifang Station cause Kuo Kuang's Train allowed standing passengers and it would be crowded and noisy and difficult to listen to the announcement of the stations. Tze chiang's train does not allowed any standing and it was much faster, takes about 30 mintues from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang compared to Kuo Kuang Train that took one hour to reach. The cost of one adult ticket by Tzechiang's train from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang Station is NT74.

Make your way to the platform, if uncertain which platform, can always check with the train's staff. I forgot the Platform number which we went. Do not just board any train, look at the sign above for the train number and there's a small window on the train itself that states the train number. It was really very easy and exciting to take the train. Not to worry, most of the information on the screen and announcement are in Mandarin and English.

I hardly warm my seat when we already reach Ruifang Station in 30 minutes. We quickly made our way to the exit when we heard the annoucement "RUIFANG", is best to get ready to alight cause at the station there would be passengers going up the train, you dont want to be caught in the jam and not able to alight.

Once we alight at Ruifang Station, we made our way down some stairs and cross over to Platform Three to board PINGXI train to Shifen, our intended destination.

There will be huge sign and arrows point to Platform 3. Remember to keep the train ticket of your Taipei to Ruifang Station cause you need to produce when you are exiting Ruifang Station but as we were not exiting yet, we hang on to the tickets.

On Platform Three we bought the PINGXI Train Ticket to Shifen at NT64 for one day pass. The ticket allowed us to hop on and off the train to any of the stations along the PINGXI line. We decided to go Shifen only cause it was raining and very cold. Shifen is always having raining days so do bring umbrella, raincoat or waterproof windbreaker with hood.

Whether we visited one station or all the stations, the ticket price remains same. There was no seat number on the ticket cause it was free seating in the train. Shifen is the fourth station excluding Ruifang Station and the journey is about 30minutes.

Do not just board any train, look at the screen which indicate Pingxi Line, if in doubt check with train staff or fellow travellers, most tourists taking the pingxi line to Shifen.

Do hold on your pingxi line train's ticket till end of your journey, there's a warden checking the tickets.

On reaching Shifen Station, we need to cross over the train track to the village, the train moved very slow so dont worry but still need to be careful.

More information about the TRA Train Time-Table, please view its official website.

An example of the search From Taipei Main Station to Shifen, the search showed you need to transfer at Ruifang Station.

The timetable might looked complicating to some but the information I provided above is really informative to help you reach Shifen from Taipei Main Station.

Video of TRA Train approaching Platform in Taipei Main Station.

Video of Pingxi Line Train approaching Ruifang Station

Note the train driver is passing a token to the train staff at the platform. In railway signalling, a token is a physical object which a locomotive driver is required to have or see before entering onto a particular section of single track. The token is clearly endorsed with the name of the section it belongs to. A token system is used for single lines because of the very much greater risk of serious collision in the event of irregular working by signalmen or traincrews, than on double lines.(Source: Wikipedia

No comments: