Alishan Forest Railway Garage Park Introduction
Chiayi Railway Warehouse Park, formerly known as "Beimen Repair Shop" during the Japanese colonial period, was originally located at the Beimen Depot, which was established when the railway line in the Pingdi section opened in October 1910. It was officially put into operation in the first year of the Taisho era (1912) as the railway construction expanded. Its primary function was to construct and repair various locomotives, passenger cars, and freight cars for the Alishan Railway, boasting nearly a century of history. Since the opening of the Alishan line, the repair shop has always been the main base for maintenance. Although the trains were originally purchased from the United States, the Beimen Repair Shop employed around one to two hundred skilled workers capable of various maintenance, modifications, and manufacturing tasks. They could manually create replacement parts and even produce external boilers and steam engines. The Alishan cypress wood passenger cars are also one of the classic masterpieces of the repair shop, with many precious retired Alishan trains now preserved at the Beimen Repair Shop. On August 23, 1993, a major fire occurred at the Beimen Repair Shop, burning down the wooden factory buildings and destroying some old trains. Today, some of the buildings have been updated, and a few of the more valuable vehicles are preserved in the warehouse. To allow the public to visit this historically significant site, it was renamed Chiayi Railway Warehouse Park in 2005. The park serves as a docking base for the Alishan Forest Railway trains and is a large ecological railway museum that draws train enthusiasts. Here, visitors can closely observe various decommissioned steam locomotives, diesel locomotives, powered passenger cars, and freight cars from the Alishan Forest Railway, as well as the cypress passenger car used by the Japanese Crown Prince during the Japanese colonial period, offering a glimpse into a century of the Alishan Railway.
