We would like to take a 3 day tour through the island this summer, after our stay in Taipei. My husband speaks some of the language, but we would like a package train trip so that we don't need to worry about connections, finding tours at stops, etc. I have read online that there is a new tourism train that takes care of all activities and travel. Does anyone know anything about it? Any websites I have found that have any information about reservations are in Chinese. Thank you!

You should take a look in the Travel section archive at washingtonpost.com. A couple of weeks ago the Travel section in the Sunday paper featured Taiwan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Mar12.html

There's only passing mention of the trains in the above article, but there are links at the bottom that might help.

Nice link, mrwunfl. Basically Taroko is amazingly beautiful and Kenting is a joke and it's dirty

filbert - The official Taiwan Rail website was down for the last few days, so I couldn't find anything. But now it's back up, and I have browsed through the links, and find the best information on this site (Chinese only). You probably has come by this already:

http://www.eztravel.com.tw/package1/taiwan_train.htm

From what I've read, they have numerous rail+hotel packages, and a typical 3-day circumferential tour would include rides on all three of the luxury trains:

Day 1: "Hot Springs Princess" from Taipei along the east coast, past the towns of Hualien and Taitung to the hot springs resort of Chihpen.

Day 2: "South Link Star" train from Chihpen to either the Kenting National Park in the southern tip of the Island, or continue to the port city of Kaoshiung.

Day 3: "Star of Kenting" back to Taipei along the West Coast mainline.

Prices depend on whether attractions are included, and class of hotels, etc... Most of these are basically unguided package trips, and you can depart daily. I think you can book them at most travel agents after arriving in Taipei.

Here's a little report in English that's posted on a Taiwanese goverment site:

http://publish.gio.gov.tw/FCJ/past/04022042.html

And here are some train times, so you know how long you'll be on the train each day:

"Hotspings Princess"
Taipei 7:18 - Chihpen 13:57
Chihpen 15:05 - Taipei 21:28

"South Link Star"
Kaoshiung 8:50 - Fongliu (for Kenting Park) 9:58 - Chihpen 11:30 - Taitung 11:44
Taitung 15:30pm - Chihpen 15:45pm - Fongliu 17:16 - Kaoshiung 18:38

"Kenting Star"
Taipei 7:30 - Kaoshiung 12:34 - Fongliu 13:34
Fonliu 14:30 - Kaoshiung 15:27 - Taipei 20:26

You can see that there's some overlap between the 3 routes, and because of the train schedule of the "South Link Star", the package that includes the Kenting National Park will take the "Kenting Star" on the first day all the way down to the southern tip of the Island in a anti-clockwise matter. If you go clockwise and take the "Hotsprings Princess" first, then you'll have more time at Chihpen, but will arrive at Kaoshiung the 2nd night, and not Kenting.

Either direction, total train time should be about 14.5 hours for the whole trip.