Taiwan's 345km high-speed line is now taking shape. It will run along the west coast of the island state connecting Taipei with Kaohsiung. When it opens in late 2005, 300km/h 12-car trains will operate at average headways of between nine and 10 minutes.

TAIWAN's new high-speed railway will revolutionise rail travel along the country's western seaboard where the majority of the country's 22 million people live. An end-to-end journey time of lh 30mm is planned with one intermediate stop for each trip. By comparison, the shortest time today by Taiwan Railway Administration's (TRA) fastest 1067mm-gauge trains is 3h 50mm, with the majority of the services taking longer.
The project is being implemented by the Taiwan High Speed Railway Corporation (THSRC) under a 35-year design, build, and operate concession which was signed in 1998. THSRC secured a credit of $NT 323 billion ($US 9.8 billion) from a syndicate of banks in February 2000. At the same time the government entered into a tripartite agreement with THSRC and the lending banks under which the government would buy back the project in certain circumstances.

Taiwan suffered a major earthquake on September 21 1999, which delayed the award of the THSRC civil works contracts by several months. Additionally, the earthquake resulted in a revision to the earthquake zoning levels affecting the civil contracts. However, the need to comply with revised zoning was subsequently withdrawn subject only to THSRC demonstrating prior to commencement the adequacy of its more stringent seismic design criteria. Although some time was lost in the design phase, the delays are expected to be made up during the construction phase, as a number of recovery measures have been agreed and adopted.