Taiwan - How to go to Shifen or Pingxi Line.

I visited Taiwan again!

End of November to beginning December was not cool at all. The weather was good and the sunshine warmed our body. It only felt cooling when the wind comes along. Still, it was less humid than Singapore and we did not sweat as much.

This time, I travelled with my family and was somewhat familiar with Taipei thanks to the pre-trip to Taiwan for the Princess Cruise. Before the trip, I was quite confused with how to go the popular Shi Fen and Jiu Fen. After all, there's only one MRT network in Singapore and I forgot that there are other railways other than the subway trains. 

I tried to search and found another blogger who provided me with an idea of how to go.
So now it is my turn, I will write on how I managed my way to Shifen!

The station to go to - TAIPEI MAIN STATION. 

We bought our tickets on the very day we arrived to ensure that there was availability for the next day trip. Taking the Taoyuan Airport Mrt Line from Terminal 2, we arrived at Taipei Main Station in 1 straight line. You would need to exit the gantry and walk towards the station hall, TRA/HSR ticketing area, to buy the railway tickets. It is around the middle of the station like an open sqaure.

Consult the information counter when in doubt!

We checked with the staff on how to go about getting our tickets. She said that we can just use our easycard to take the railway to Ruifang Station. The question is - Will we have reserved seats?

Once you reach Ruifang station, you have to change to another train on the Pingxi Line to go to Shifen Station. If you are keen to pack all the stations in one day, you may wish to buy a 1-day unlimited pass along the Pingxi Line. It can be bought at the Information Counter or at Ruifang Station itself. 

Going with the the standard ticketing at the machine -

We decided to get our TRA tickets using the machine in order to secure seats on the train. It would be a 40 minutes journey from Taipei Main Station to Ruifang Station! We proceeded with a few timings for the 2-way tickets because the system will prompt us if the tickets were sold out and we had to try again. However, each time the system restarts to the home page, it will load for some time.
Tip: Jump from machine to machine if there are not many people around!

Follow the instructions on the screen and select "Taipei" as the starting location and "Ruifang" as the destination. It will prompt you to select the time and the number of pax. If the time is unavailable, it will show a message and you will not be able to buy anything. Have patience and restart.

The funny thing is, our tickets towards Ruifang station were seatless! The return trip has designated seats which is really thankful since we would have been very tired after the day trip. I do not know how it went through because it did not prompt us whether we would like to continue even when there were no seats left. Our theory is that they will still sell the tickets regardless of seat allocation until the point that they reach the maximum number for each trip.

My advice: Maybe you should buy from the physical counters instead if you do not mind the queue. This would allow you to ask questions that the machine cannot answer. In addition, there is a time limit for each selection on the machine, so we were going through a rather fast paced decision making process.


On the day - Head to the TRA (台鐡) Taipei Station

We took from Ximen station to Taipei Main station via Bannan line. Follow the signs and you will reach the TRA Taipei Station, even though it can be confusing especially since it is filled with people.

Slip the ticket in the machine and collect it as you walk past the gantry. We had our 7/11 breakfast at an area of seats. There is a screen to check on your train status. We were quite early that time, around 20 mins before time.

After we were done eating, we went up the platform to wait instead. You need to take note of the train type (number), destination and time of train. They should all tally. The screen will also inform of the approximate time of delay should there be any. Since we had no seats, we could get up anywhere and stand around.

The train does not have much space to stand around and we were quite a hindrance when people want to past us. After everyone has settled down and the train moved off, we quickly took the chance to sit at those empty seats.

Our happiness did not last that long when the passengers from the next stop came claiming their seats. We stood our way throughout for the rest of the 30 minutes in the connector between the cars. It was quite warm there and we were right beside the toilet. It was quite an experience.

When we arrived at Ruifang station, we went out, went down the platform and came up again. As we exited, we had to surrender our hardcopy tickets to the staff whom asked for it. It's not a systemtic process though and it seems that some people might be missed out if it was a peak period.


At Ruifang Station - 

We bought our Pingxi line ticket here. You have a choice of a one-day unlimited pass for the whole line or to a destination. Given the time limit, we headed for 1 destination only, which is Shifen. We went back in to the platform right beside and boarded the train headed towards Qingtong. Do take care of your train tickets because it is likely that the train conductor will come by and check for valid tickets. Since nobody will check what train you actually board, it is your own responsibility to ensure you board the correct one.

Once at Shifen station, you can exit the station and give back the ticket to the staff again. Explore the lane of Shifen and walk over to the waterfall as well. There was this black dog just laying leisurely on the bridge, and apparently fighting with two dogs which came along to disturb. If it gets too tiring to walk back, you may take a taxi back to the station (for around 100 NTD if I remembered right).

Take note of the train schedule!

One very important thing to note about the Pingxi Line train - the time interval for trains is 1 hour!! (See schedule below). Even though I already knew this, we seemed to have forgotten about it and missed the previous train. Our train from Ruifang back to Taipei Main Station was at 3.25pm, while the next Pingxi Line train was coming at 2.40pm. Since the journey back is around 30 mins long, we might or might not make it. We decided to catch the taxi back at 800 NTD to Ruifang station. Otherwise, we had nothing to do for 1 hour also.

The ride back was quite nice as the driver is such a talkative lady.
Her number is below if you want to book her services. It is really beneficial to rent a car to bring you around if you wish to cover more areas.

From Ruifang station, we boarded our train at Car 11 area since we had seats this time. The car number is labelled at the station. And that was a good 40 minutes of sleep on the train with reclined seats.