History
The first rail station in Taipei was completed in Dadaocheng in 1891, when the railway to Keelung was opened for service. Initially, a temporary station was built while a permanent station was constructed in 1897. In 1901, the station was located to the east of its current location. It was rebuilt in 1940 to accommodate growing passenger traffic.
To alleviate traffic congestion caused by railroad crossings in downtown Taipei, an underground railway tunnel between Huashan and Wanhua was built along with the present station building as part of the Taipei Railway Underground Project. When the underground system was completed on September 2, 1989, railway service was moved to the newly-completed building (completed on September 5, 1989) and the old building as well as a temporary station were demolished.
The current station was further expanded with the opening of the Taipei Metro. The metro station is connected to the basement of the railway station and opened to passenger traffic in 1997 to the Danshui Line (now the Tamsui Line). Extensive underground malls now exist at the front and back of the station, which emulate those found in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. The station also became a terminus for Taiwan High Speed Rail trains when the network began service in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Taipei Railway Station
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—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)