Kaohsiung MRT basic information

• By dokuya
• 5 April, 2017
• No Comments

I have spent a lot of time in the Taipei area and am very familiar with the MRT there, this is my first experience with the Kaohsiung MRT.  The most important thing is that it now accepts the Easy Card that is used in Taipei.  This was not always the case but not needing 2 different types of cards sure makes life easier.

At the moment there are only 2 lines (red and orange).  There is only one point in which the lines intersect and that is at the Formosa Boulevard Station.  This station is perhaps the most beautiful one in Taiwan.  Not only is it really colorful but every time that I was there someone was also playing the piano making this the most memorable MRT stop.

Although the Formosa Boulevard Station may be the most memorable the Zuoying may be the most important one.  This stop is similar to Taipei’s Banqiao stop in that from there you can take the MRT, HSR and regular trains.

A strategy worth remembering is that Zuoying is the HSR south bound terminal point and north bound starting station.  Which means that the train starts empty when heading north.  I was there on a holiday in which every reserved seat was sold out.  Only non reserved seats were available.  There were about 1000 people in line but since it is the point of origination the cars start empty and they added 1 more non reserved car (making a total of 4).  So with 60 seats in a car, times 4 cars that is 240 and with a train every 20 minutes they were seats for 720 people every hour.  It looked hopeless but I got on the train and had a seat after waiting about 1.5 hours in line.  See the photo of the line, it was just passengers for non reserved seats.