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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Alishan railway tickets for New Year’s go on sale
The sunrise and sea of clouds scenery is seen from on Alishan in this undated photo. Photo courtesy of the Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office
By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter
The Alishan Forest Railway’s trains for sunrise watching during the upcoming New Year’s holiday are to open for group booking today, with more than 8,000 passengers expected to make the trip, the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau said on Friday.
The railway’s Jhushan （祝山） branch line in Chiayi County takes tourists to Jhushan Railway Station — the line’s final station and at 2,451m above sea level also the nation’s highest — which is regarded as the best venue from which to watch the sunrise in Alishan, the bureau said.
The Jhushan line attracted 7,442 passengers between Dec. 30 last year and Jan. 1, and 10 percent more passengers are expected during the upcoming four-day holiday from Dec. 29 to Jan. 1, bureau Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Director-General Huang Miao-hsiu （黃妙修） said.
Starting from today, visitors can book tickets for departures between 1:50am and 4:25am via the office’s hotline at 0800-003-096, which is only open for groups with more than 30 members each, the bureau said.
The bureau has reserved 4,760 tickets for the presale and up to 100 tickets can be reserved per telephone call, it said.
Sales for individuals are to launch at 12:30pm on Dec. 31 at Alishan Railway Station, with each allowed to buy up to 10 tickets, it added.
The railway would not launch online bookings this time because its online booking system is too old to incorporate additional departures, office secretary Lin Chi-te （林其德） said, but added that it would be updated to allow for additional trains by January 2020.
To increase the trains’ capacity, the bureau has budgeted for buying 20 other carriages so that visitors would not have to take the earliest train and arrive at the watching spot so early in cold weather, Lin added.
The sun on New Year’s Day will rise at 6:40am in Chiayi County, 6:39am in Taipei, and 6:36am in Hualien and Taitung counties, the Central Weather Bureau said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
