Asia Cement Aerial Tramway

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 05:01 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 10Shutter Speed1/400 secFocal Length31.0 mmISO400Exposure Value15.3 EVOriginal Size1920 × 1280

Back in 2015 I went out with a friend to explore several abandoned and neglected sites in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Our first stop was one of many mothballed cable car (空中纜車) towers in Hengshan connecting a stone quarry near Yùshān Village (玉山里) in Guanxi formerly known as Chìkēshān (赤柯山), with a cement plant next to Jiǔzàntóu Station (九讚頭車站). There seems to be no general agreement about the formal name for the system so I’m picking one of many options and dubbing this the Asia Cement Aerial Tramway (亞泥空中纜車) for the sake of simplicity.

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 04:57 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 14Shutter Speed1/800 secFocal Length20.0 mmISO400Exposure Value17.3 EVOriginal Size1800 × 1200

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 05:01 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 14Shutter Speed1/800 secFocal Length18.0 mmISO400Exposure Value17.3 EVOriginal Size1800 × 1200

Jiuzantou Station is on the Nèiwān Line (內灣線), which was originally built in the 1940s and expanded in the 1950s to support the growth of the cement and forestry industries in the area, both of which have fallen into steep decline in recent decades. Much like the historic Píngxī Line (平溪線) in New Taipei, the Neiwan Line has recently seen renewed interest and growing passenger numbers in support of tourism in the region.

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 04:55 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 16Shutter Speed1/1000 secFocal Length19.0 mmISO400Exposure Value18.0 EVOriginal Size1800 × 1200

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 05:03 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 13Shutter Speed1/640 secFocal Length18.0 mmISO400Exposure Value16.7 EVOriginal Size1800 × 1200

The same cannot be said for the cable car system, which runs approximately 9.5 kilometers over the rolling hills of rural Hsinchu. From the looks of it the system is still in good shape despite shutting down about a decade ago (although the buckets are still visible in 2009 even if the tramway isn’t moving). This long period of inactivity would suggest that there are more abandoned facilities to be explored along the tramway route, with particular emphasis on the stone quarries at one end and the cement factories at the other¹, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

Date CapturedSeptember 3rd, 2015 at 04:55 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IIApertureƒ / 10Shutter Speed1/400 secFocal Length55.0 mmISO400Exposure Value15.3 EVOriginal Size1800 × 1200

As of the earlier 2020s this particular cable car tower had been dismantled. Many other towers on the line also seem to have met their fate.

Footnotes

1. The Jiuzantou cement plant is still operated by the Asia Cement Corporation (亞洲水泥股份有限公司) but the stone quarry also provided material for a Taiwan Cement (台灣水泥) plant in Zhudong that is no longer in business. ↩