Exotic rail travels in 2019 to North Borneo, Taiwan, South Korea, Ethiopia and Djibouti

Presenter: by Iain Scotchman

Virtual Meeting via Zoom

Iain was able to entertain 66 members and guests from Europe as well as the UK, in this two-parter; the first was set in SE Asia, the second in the Horn of Africa.

The first trip, PTG Tours Taiwan tour was organised and led by Ray Schofield, the second to Ethiopia led by Colin Meill for the LCGB, and pleasingly several people who accompanied Iain were with us on Monday evening. The mixture of locomotives and rolling stock was in deed exotic, having their origins in the UK, USA, France, Japan and China among other places. In North Borneo for example a Vulcan Foundry 2-6-2 was to be found and a converted Wickham DMU. We saw a Hitachi loco on a works train and the Chinese turntable used to turn the steam loco off North Borneo Railway luxury train. In Taiwan there is a mixture of gauges and the locals are well served by standard gauge high speed trains as well as metre gauge trains. As with many ex-colonial countries there are contrasts, with for example, a massive multi-level station in Taipei to a forest railway of narrow gauge in Alishan, featuring extensive spirals to lift the line to around 5 000 feet.

The itinerary in S. Korea included a visit to the DMZ, where it transpired the N. Koreans had surreptitiously tunnelled into the South, now a tourist attraction!

In Ethiopia and Djibouti there was also much of interest, including the remaining section of the metre gauge line and Chinese built high-speed line that suffers both from the wrath of the local tribesmen whose livestock is killed by trains on the amazingly unfenced line, and from a lack of passengers as the most communities served by the old line are now by-passed.