In Taiwan, when we come to talk about popular train stations, we would not refer to the big stations which are always crowded with passengers, or boast of a modern architecture with novel and comfortable facilities. Instead, we would highly praise a small station with abundant historical memory and old-time building; Checheng Station, one of the most representative stations in Taiwan.
Checheng Station, quietly located in a small town in Central Taiwan, is the terminal station of Nanton Tourist Railroad. The town had once been famous for lumbering and coal industry in 1910-1920S. In those days, people used to live on the area’s natural resources like timber and coals, and push-trolley tracks were built for transporting those materials. As hundreds of push trolleys used to stop at Checheng Station, local people came to call the place “Car depot (Checheng).”
Although the lumbering and coal industry has already declined, a Logging Museum (Log house where the trolleys used to stop by for rest), has been receiving increasing attentions today, and as a result of great efforts by local people to promote the town and museum using the area’s famous wooden works.
Checheng Station was destroyed by severe earthquake in 1999, and was reconstructed while keeping its original wooden structure. Its color-faded walls and short houses, together with wooden roads and beautiful mountains around make us feel like we are back in the 1960s. Checheng station is full of story and tradition. Today, the station is not only welcoming passengers, but it has a great meaning as an important economic source and a cultural inheritance in the town.
Ms. Amanda Liu