Breezy Blue Train Fangliao to Taitung | Taiwan Scenic Coastal Railway on a slow train Southlink line

Breezy Blue Train Fangliao to Taitung | Taiwan Scenic Coastal Railway on a slow train Southlink line

The South Link Line in Taiwan, between 
Fangliao and Taitung. This is a beautiful railway line, that only opened in 1991 as 
the completion of the railway line around the island. Along this route you will find the Breezy Blue, a An old fashioned train where the windows can be opened and 
where you get lots of touristic information. Despite the very touristic character, I really 
enjoyed this ride and I show you why in this video. Join us on board of this train the Breezy
Blue, here in Taiwan. What is a touristic train, an old train. And actually I really like 
it. For now let’s get this video on the track and let’s roll… the intro.
I couldn’t have booked this without her by the way [Music]
(Subtitles and languages of the video in other languages than English are automatically translated) We arrived in Fangliao from Taipei where we stayed 
with my parents-in-law. At the moment we arrived at the station, we were being welcomed by this little Breezy Blue miniature train, I really like it. Also within the hotel the Breezy Blue train has been 
clearly advertised. The hotel where we stayed had a swimming pool at the roof what was absolutely great to cool down. We discovered Fangliao a bit, however because we were here on a Monday evening there wasn’t much going on to be honest. The night market is not every night at this little town. But 
it’s still a really nice and cute town to walk around and to discover the place. In the evening we took some more refreshment dives in the pool of the hotel at the rooftop…, From where on you also have a great view on the, town including the station and  the bus stop that is located not too far away from the station If you want to travel by bus to Kenting,what is absolutely worth it by the way, you have to take the bus from here. So I’ll be back here for sure. And even though there was no night market at the moment we were here, there were lots of good food options. I mean we are in Taiwan after all. This here is the bus by the way. And this here is the way to the railway station. The railway station and the bus station are really the center of the little town. It’s just a really cute town I can’t repeat this enough. We actually planned this trip pretty last minute. The Breezy Blue Train is operating most days of the week but it’s not always available, especially not last minute. So we were lucky on this. On how to book your train tickets I really have some comments 
on this and I’ll get back to this later on in the video. This is Fangliao Railway Station and right at the front there are some taxi stands. And once again if you walk a little bit more to the front, to the bigger street you’ll find the bus stops. However, for the Breezy Blue train we need to go 
to another spot, that is located a little bit at the side of the railway station. As they call it themselves, this is the “Breezy Blue station”. This used to be a kind of accommodation for the Taiwanese railway administration their train staff to sleep over if they had longer working days or schedules. And now it’s the kind of the starting point for our trip. Well let me tell you one thing…, This train is super touristic! But still, I liked I it to be honest They have some cute artworks on the building as well, including the neo shape of the train as you can see here on the right. Anyway, my wife booked the train tickets on the website of Lion Travel That is very bad in English by the way. And over here, we have to exchange our reservation into physical tickets as far as we understood. And these were not really physical thickens. There were some goodies, like a little hand 
fan, kind of a key cord you need to give back after the ride anyway, for some audio guide, a 
sticker, the ear plugs for the audio guide and some more general information. On the tickets also a 
carriage number was being added and apart from the carriage number also, I think something that was 
mentioned as seat number was given. But apparently it’s just free sitting, you would just go to that 
carriage number and these were apparently the amount of bookings so in the order of when we 
made the booking for that specific carriage. We couldn’t select the carriage though when we booked 
it, this will be assigned automatically. I opted for the vegetarian meal on board of the train while my 
girlfriend went for the non-vegetarian meal. If you are a Muslim, I really advise you to choose for the vegetarian meal because the non-vegetarian meal probably contains pork. And apart from that, if you choose the vegetarian meal it’s much more sustainable for the planet, because meat is quite polluting. There is a small souvenir shop as well, where I also purchased a tote bag. That was almost the same price as the train ticket we bought, but it was really nice and cute. Because this is such a touristic thing, people took pictures as you can see here with the whole sign in front of the breezy blue station where we got our tickets…, And we didn’t have a signed seats, my ultimate goal was to be on time in the railway station and to be in front of the ticket gate as much as possible. Normally if I’m in Taiwan, I’m here in the winter time. This is actually my first time visiting Taiwan in June. It’s not even the hottest month yet and it was really hot when we made this journey. If we go in the winter time, we basically save on the heating at home and we save on the air 
conditioning in Taiwan So, in terms of money and environment it’s the best thing we can do. Anyway I won’t dig in that topic too much for now. This here, is the main concourse of Fangliao Railway Station. It’s really old school like you can find on the smaller towns here in Taiwan. Around the railway station, at the front basically, you find lots of shops. Within the railway station you find a staffed ticket counter, a vending machine for tickets, a touristic information point and a small kind of convenience store. Also there are clear displays with information about departing trains, and this display here, about the South Link Railway Line, that we’ll be taking today as well. What was the last section to complete the railway line around the main island of Taiwan. This has only been open since 1991. And since 2020, late 2020 I have to say, the South Link Railway Line, where we’ll be traveling on today has completely been electrified. While we were waiting, some big groups came 
here as well. I started to get worried about this topic. Anyway, I was one of the first to be on board of the train. However before we continue and show you the train and obviously the awesome views from the train I hope you like this video so far, on this train. If you do so or if it’s a helpful video to you, please give me a thumbs up. I really appreciate that. If you have some questions, feedback, comments, even if you just want to say hello feel free to leave a comment And if you like to see more trip reports, this channel is mainly focusing on long distance and or international traveling But this is an exception when it comes to that But it’s a really nice train journey. then hit that subscribe button if you haven’t done this already For now, let’s continue with this video. And for this, let’s go to our train at Fangliao Railway Station. You do find elevators at this station as well and of course the stairs However because I felt like there were quite some people waiting in the main concourse of the railway station. I just want to be on board of this train as soon 
as possible, and have a good seat on the right side. Before you go to the platform there are clear screens that will host route information as well, and this is not only in Mandarin Chinese but also in English. Our train today departed from platform two. Platform two host two tracks, and the tracks have 
been mentioned basically as platform 2 A and B. In Taiwan, the track numbers are not mentioned, only 
the platform numbers. Keep this in mind. Anyway, the tour guide for our carriage was checking 
basically the tickets, and gave everybody the audio guide. Which I obviously did not use because 
it was all in Mandarin Chinese. The tour guide does have a wireless microphone and this way he can  inform people about things along the route, etc. This is actually really nice and once again if you don’t speak Mandarin Chinese it’s not very useful and therefore I really didn’t listen to it Also, this train is very noisy, So, yeah… actually I didn’t care, I just enjoyed the ride and board of this train. Now, before I show you the train and of course the views from the train, let’s take a closer look at the exterior of our train for today. Our train is being pulled by two diesel engines of 
Taiwanese railway class R100. These engines can be found everywhere around the world, and are worldwide better known as the EMG G22 series. Now, since 2020 the entire railway line around the 
island has been electrified with the south link line, that will be taken today was the last section 
that has been electrified, the diesel engines are still being used for some routes like for example 
these touristic routes, and also for some smaller branch lines and then especially for the freight 
trains. The carriages, I honestly don’t know what Taiwanese railway class these are. If you know 
this, let me know in the comments. However, these are definitely older carriages. From what I understood older trains in Taiwan also used to have these blue colours. In terms of accessibility, as you can 
see they will lay some kind of bridges, so in that sense this is a perfect train. At the outside, there are some basic information screens in Mandarin that will host the route information and that’s basically it. The train makes some more stops along the way. And as you can see at this stop over here, there were some other trains that could pass us. Some more trains passed us over here, in both directions because a big part of the route that we’ll be traveling on today is single track. Well, in terms for the exterior I think you understand it. For now let’s take a closer look at the interior of these trains. The train makes some longer stops along the way. Where people are going to go out take picture of the surrounding area, It’s quite beautiful actually. But it’s also the opportunity where you almost have an empty 
train, and I can show you the train. Let me walk you through. This carriage is quite full (when the train is driving), but this 
comes in a more long distance train composition. I mean this is a touristic train, don’t expect too much. But you find the fans all over. There’s no air conditioning. You can open the windows and back in the old hot days You also have these things here to block out some sunlight to make it not too hot if it’s really hot in here. And then of course you find the fans. The switches for the 
fans should be here I think here at the side maybe.. Yes. Here you find it at the side. But to conserve energy we have to turn it off if we are at the stops. I don’t think it takes a lot of energy but okay. And of these are the seats you can see over here, I think they’re pretty comfy. Let me test one out, I haven’t tested them. I think this one looks…. well, they are occupied. And there’s no here now.. but pretty comfy to be honest. I mean the amount of leg room is also quite okay I’m kind of tall boy. This is this is pretty comfy. It’s old school but it’s comfy. You do find some seat numbers 
as well at the side, over here window and Aisle is also mentioned, so W and A. Although you cannot…. uh we also have this. I don’t know maybe if you’re on this carriage you have to go to your assigned seats. I don’t know exactly how this works. Let’s move on to the second carriage. But not before we do a toilet review. And these toilets are pretty modern. Well they don’t dump everything on the tracks what is absolutely great. But they do have an old style toilet as well I’ll show you in a bit. Oh sorry Um people are getting slowly more 
on board of the train So let me walk through I already been to that toilet It’s also a more 
modern style toilet. Here you find some seats in the length of the train as well Just like in our carriage. But this is more combination of what we have and the carriage we had before, still pretty comfortable seats to be honest. I think this is originally for 
the train driver or train staff. And here we are… This is our spot This is where I filmed the views from the train. If you watch the views from the  train video you can hear me saying all these things (check that video on the description of this video). And this is our carriage here, what is actually really nice, because there are not that many people here. So it’s easy to move from left  to right, what is perfect. Can you imagine, back in the old days when people stood in the train, maybe in rush hour like this in the heat? Then these fans you find on these trains are absolutely a lifesaver. I mean… this is my better half. Melting one. Yeah we get these little fans. I think maybe I already told you in the video but we get these little fans as well what is actually really nice. And it’s not made out of plastic. Normally these things are made out of plastic. During the elections in Taiwan, a lot of politicians hand out these things in plastic and I would say like I wouldn’t vote for the one who put it in plastic. I mean there are lots  of great things about Taiwan but if there’s one thing I really want to criticize it’s the amount of plastic usage. Let’s see, this is maybe the old school toilet? It’s closed. Let me see later. I think this is the old school toilet babe? Or not?
Old school? I’m not sure I haven’t used it yet. yeah, I saw two toilets already that were not 
old school, Let me walk on, before everybody gets on board. This is the fourth carriage in our train.
And we have a little… This is also something typically for Taiwan and also Japan, you find these stamps you can put in a book. And we don’t have a stamp book, that’s a pity. You can stamp on your ticket. I can 
stamp on them? Oh yeah, it’s size for the ticket actually. Yhe same size. Yeah. Maybe we’ll do that 
later. And here they…, there was a shop at the at Fangliao as well. But here they have the shop again. And actually this is pretty cute. You can buy some cups some other things, It’s really cute actually. So let’s move on, to the front of the train. I think this is where they keep all this storage and everything for the stuff they sell. And this here, is the front of the train. And this here is the same carriage as what we have. And then in front of that, you will find the engines. Let me walk a bit more to the front. Here we are. And think another room for staff. Can you imagine, back in the days commuting in these temperatures without AC? That’s crazy! That’s really crazy. Let me walk a little bit back to our carriage. What you do find,
I mean we travel with luggage. We make a round trip now or not really round…, we just make a trip. But you do find luggage racks as well for luggage.
You can also put it under the seat. So for luggage 
it’s okay. Would I say it’s a comfortable long distance train? Absolutely not. But the seats are nice It’s a touristic train. You can open… This is where it’s about It’s not about a serious way of transportation. You want to go fast? Just take the regular trains. They will pass us by every now and 
then. We make quite long stops. But it’s just an awesome way…, I remember the first time actually when I took when we travelled around here, when we travelled on this route, was the other way around by the way. I was so disappointed that it went so fast. I think it’s just a it’s a slower train but you can have a great view. Yes! Yes, because then we were out of the tunnel and then we’re 
like nice views and then in a tunnel again. And here you just stop at the spot where the nice 
views are. Oh they even have a mailbox over here. Is it a real mailkbox?
I think so. Even have something on in hand to take photos. They 
they have more stamps here by the way. And they they have… Oh this is the most southern… They have the the things you can hold for the for the photo like photo props. Yes. So where are we now? I not here but I think we will but is Do you see the current station? No. Okay. That’s a pity, otherwise 
we can make a picture. This is the toilet, They open it and it’s uh they blocked it over here. Because this is how it used to be They dump everything straight at the track. But you cannot walk in 
They blocked it as you can see. Well they also had some chilled drinks on board with the train in the kind of shop, and this was a special themed drink. Every time we went offboard the tour guide gave 
some hand sanitizer to sanitize our hands. And he was just really passionate telling about 
the route. Also a bento box was included in the ticket, they overhanded it on the south to north route relatively early I have to say. But it’s really nice. You get some chopsticks and also some 
fruit is included, Guava, mango and some tomatoes. This area where we traveled through is well known for the mango production and the mangoes here are really fresh and good, Later on I also went back to one of the first carriages I showed you, I was wondering if I could turn the seats because this is typically Asian. And yes you can. This way you can have quite a lot of seats into the driving direction. This train is a commercial train, that’s being operated by Lion Travel what is a travel agency in Taiwan. They do have some offices at railway stations as well, I think if you go there you can book these trains as well. However the information in English on the website of Lion 
Travel is just very disappointing. It’s pretty much non-existent. They tried to make an English 
website one day for these trains but they didn’t update it. So yeah, it’s basically not working. If you want to book these train tickets yourself I think the best thing you can do is to translate the website literally. The train we take is not very fast. The diesel engines don’t accelerate fast either. You can imagine with the electrification of  this railway line the timetable has been improved a lot. And especially because most electric trains that will be used on these routes can accelerate pretty fast as well. Along the way the train makes some more stops. You cannot book tickets from these 
stops, with this train but at these stops you can go out and enjoy the stops and get some more information etc. The longest stop takes around half an hour but there are some more shorter stops along the way. I also recorded the views from the train, for the entire route without voice over and music like in this video And I’ll publish that video simultaneously with this specific 
trip report on the train Viking passenger POV YouTube channel. You can find a link to that video in the description of this video. For now, just sit back relax and enjoy the views from the train and I’ll get back to you at the very end of this video. [Music] We’re back at Fangliao now. We took this train Actually 
we continue to the highspeed railway station and take the train from there to Taipei. Let me get on board before it departs. But I hope you liked this video or this has been a helpful video 
to you. If so, please give me a thumbs up. And if you like to see more trip reports, in general this channel is focused on long distance and or international traveling, this is really an exception on this. If you like to see more then hit that subscribe button if you haven’t done this already. Before we really end of this video, one last thing. Once agaon, thank you for watching. If you want to see the views from the train, I will publish this on the Train Viking Passenger POV channel. And if you like to see other trip reports, you can find them on this channel as well. Apart from that, in the description of this video you find a link to a  map and on this map you can find all videos as well, but then on a map. See you on the next one.

Join us on a stunning ride aboard the Breezy Blue (藍皮解憂號) — one of Taiwan’s most nostalgic and scenic trains, operated by Lion Travel. This trip report covers the full journey from Fangliao to Taitung, showcasing breathtaking views of the Pacific coastline, lush green landscapes, and the relaxed retro charm of this special heritage train.

🌊 Route: Fangliao → Taitung
🚃 Train Type: Breezy Blue (Diesel-hauled heritage train)
🎥 What to Expect:

Beautiful coastal scenery

Classic blue livery and vintage interior

Peaceful countryside vibes

Station stops and on-board experience

Whether you’re a train enthusiast or just love slow travel, this video gives you a taste of one of Taiwan’s most iconic rail experiences. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more railway adventures.

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Hualien – Kaohsiung (along the same route): https://youtu.be/giYOwXoB3Nc

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▬▬▬▬▬▬ VIDEO CONTENT ▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Introduction
00:58 Fangliao, Taiwan (枋寮)
01:47 Fangliao railway station & Breezy Blue station (including souvenir shop)
08:52 Breezy Blue train exterior & interior
19:58 Views from the train Fangliao (枋寮) – Taitung (台東) South Link Line (南迴線)
27:29 End of this trip report

Trip report 255
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