by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo credit: Book Cover
DAFYDD FELL and Wang Hsiang’s The Twilight Years of Taiwan’s Sugar Railways is an insightful look at Taiwan’s railway history.
The book takes its structure from a series of photos taken by Fell in the 1990s devoted to documenting Taiwan’s sugar railways. Sugar railways were already in decline then, making the photographs a document of the last years of what was previously a key node of transporting goods in Taiwan. The use of trucks later came to replace sugar railways.
The book does a good job in situating the photographs of different kinds of trains and railways in the broader historical context. Taiwan’s railway system, after all, originated during the Japanese colonial period. But the railways themselves developed under the influence of the elite politics of the time, in that elites hoped that railways would improve the economic prospects of the areas they lived in. Likewise, the lines for the sugar railways were also justified for military purposes, in that in the event of an invasion, they could serve to facilitate the transportation of troops and goods.
Fell’s photographs are evocative in depicting the era in rural parts of Taiwan and harken back to his own personal experience visiting his wife’s family. The photographs are situated in the course of Taiwan’s democratization, but provide a glimpse of rural Taiwan during this time through the lens of railways.
These are interspersed with the stories of the individuals who worked on railways during the time, as well as a year-by-year account of the railways in their last years. The aim in this seems to evoke the sense of change, as well as to point toward the larger tapestry of infrastructure that the railway was part of.
In this sense, the book serves to conjure an era that is now gone. Though Fell and Wang outline some of the other possibilities contemplated for the railways, tragically, it appears that much of Taiwan’s railway heritage has not been preserved. But through the rich images in the book, as well as the historical context that they are situated in, one can at least get a sense of the times and atmosphere. And while tourist trains still operate, as the book’s closing highlights, it may not be much longer until they, too, cease operation.