About a 20-minute walk from Chang­hua Station one comes across a place called the Chang­hua Rolling Stock Branch, where the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) runs its central Taiwan maintenance operations. By far the most eye-catching feature there is the roundhouse.

Railway roundhouses are legacies of the steam engine era. Taiwan once had six roundhouses, but one after another was taken out of service after steam engines became obsolete, and now the roundhouse in Chang­hua is the only one left. Shown here is a historic photo of the former roundhouse in Hsinchu.

Viewed from the air, the Changhua roundhouse looks a bit like a thickly cut slice of canned pineapple.

The roundhouse is a holdover from the steam era, designed to house locomotives sent in for maintenance. At some of the early roundhouses in the West, the radially arranged locomotive stalls nearly complete a full circle.

After the forces of the Qing Dynasty were defeated by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, the Japanese began modernizing the railway system in Taiwan. In the years between 1895 and 1945, they built roundhouses near the railway stations in Tai­pei, Hsin­chu, Chang­hua, ­Chiayi, and Kao­hsiung (all these stations remain in operation today), as well as Kao­hsiung Harbor Station (which was closed down in late 2008).

Taiwan’s first roundhouse was built in 1901 in Tai­pei in an area located between today’s Tai­pei Station and Dr. Sun Yat-sen Park. Aerial photographs taken by the US military in 1945 show that the locomotive stalls formed a semicircle of nearly 180 degrees, similar in shape to a fully opened hand fan. It was the biggest structure within a radius of several kilometers.

But steam locomotives were eventually taken out of service, and cities grew, making roundhouses an obsolete waste of space. Authorities soon targeted them for remodeling or demolition.

In the 1970s, the Kao­hsiung roundhouse was the first to be demolished by the TRA as it worked to electrify the rail system. The roundhouse in Tai­pei bit the dust in 1980s when the new Tai­pei Station was built. The roundhouse in Hsin­chu went out of service in 1992 when the site was converted into an engine shed for electric multiple units (EMUs).

Yang Zhao­ting, the spokesman for the Chang­hua Railway History Association, explains that very few people in Taiwan knew in the past that Taiwan’s rail system was so rich in historical artifacts, so there was little concern about preservation. When the roundhouses started getting demolished, no one spoke up in opposition until after 1994, when the demise of the roundhouse in ­Chiayi stirred people to the realization that if the last remaining roundhouse were not preserved, the memory of steam locomotives in Taiwan would fade away.

The Changhua roundhouse is used for servicing steam engines. Of the five steam engines that have been recommissioned in Taiwan, CK101, CK124, and DT668 are operated out of Changhua.

Taiwan’s north-south rail line is divided into inland and coastal routes between Chang­hua and Hsin­chu. Completed in the same year as the coastal route, the Chang­hua roundhouse was used exclusively to service locomotives plying that route.

For rail buffs and casual visitors alike, the most attention-­grabbing feature of the Chang­hua roundhouse is the building housing the locomotive stalls.

The building is divided into 12 stalls, each with its own rail spur, and each just large enough to accommodate a single locomotive. The 12 stalls are radially arranged around a central point, where a 360-degree turntable operates. Spanning the turntable is a structure that somewhat resembles a steel bridge. Locomotives roll onto this bridge-like structure and wait there while it pivots so they can roll off onto a different set of tracks.

The turntable is at the center of the roundhouse, while the stalls form a 99-degree arc around it. All locomotives that come to Chang­­hua must use the turntable to switch tracks and go into one of the stalls for maintenance.

Old records indicate that the roundhouse only had six center stalls when it was first completed in 1922. These were added to on either side until the last of today’s 12 stalls was built in 1933.

Standing on the turntable and looking toward the roundhouse building, one sees a series of stalls numbered from 1 to 12. According to Hu Wenhong, head of the inspection unit at Chang­hua Rolling Stock Branch, the TRA has continually added to its equipment to accommodate the move to diesel-­electric and all-electric locomotives as well as the recommissioning of old steam locomotives for nostalgic sorties. Stalls 1 and 2 are now designated for the maintenance of 33 all-electric locomotives; stalls 3 to 9 are for 33 diesel-electric locomotives; and stalls 10 to 12 are specially set aside for three steam engines.

This is the only facility in Taiwan where all three types of locomotives are serviced.

Of the five steam engines that have been recommissioned in Taiwan, CK101, CK124, and DT668 are operated out of Chang­hua. Some especially observant rail buffs may have noticed that CK124 was used by cinema director Wei Te-sheng in the making of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.

Although only three stalls are used for servicing steam engines, the building still stands pretty much exactly as it was built between 1922 and 1933. Each of the 12 stalls, for example, retains its original pair of smoke jacks, one located at either end so there would always be one lined up with the steam engine’s smoke stack regardless whether the engine rolled forward or backward into the stall.

So, just how great would our loss have been if the Changhua roundhouse had not been preserved?

The Changhua roundhouse is a living piece of railway history that attracts visits from an unending stream of rail buffs every day.

When the TRA began planning back in 1993 to build a new EMU maintenance facility in Chang­hua, the idea of demolishing the roundhouse there was discussed.

By late 1994, however, it was the only one of the original six roundhouses still left. The Railway Cultural Society was not yet up and running, but a group of rail enthusiasts came to the defense of the roundhouse. Their first goal was to have it designated as a historic site so it could at least be protected for the time being. The question of how to use the site could be addressed later.

Their approach was strongly supported by then-legislator Wong Chin-chu, a native of Chang­hua. Together, they took up the matter with the TRA.

But some opposed their plan on the grounds that the roundhouse, built just 72 years before, was not old enough to qualify for designation as a historic site.

Hung Chih-wen, now an associate professor at the National Taiwan Normal University Department of Geography, was an active participant in the campaign to save the roundhouse. In his 2011 book Taiwan Railway Culture, he looks back at the preservation campaign and disputes the idea that there is some minimum age that is required for designation as a historic site.

Hung writes: “Some may feel that a roundhouse dating to 1922 doesn’t qualify as a ‘historic’ site, but we’re talking about the last site of its type still in existence. We’ve got to cherish this monument to the progress of modern civilization, and do a proper job of preserving it.”

After more than 10 meetings to discuss the matter, the TRA finally agreed in 1995 to preserve the Chang­hua roundhouse. The TRA had been planning to build an engine shed for EMUs there, but the facility was in the end built at an abandoned freight yard just south of Chang­hua Station.

In January 2001, the Chang­­hua County Government designated the Chang­­hua roundhouse a county historic site. While preserving the site, the TRA has continued using it for the operations of the Chang­hua Rolling Stock Branch. As a result, steam, diesel-electric, and all-electric locomotives shuttle in and out of the roundhouse every day for servicing, which makes the Chang­hua roundhouse a globally significant site at a time when roundhouses around the world are being converted into museums.

“Smoke jacks” like this provided an escape route for the smoke from steam engines inside the roundhouse. Now that they no longer spew black smoke, they must find a new life for themselves.

But because it is part of a chapter in railway history that no longer exists, it would be virtually impossible for the Chang­hua roundhouse to keep viably operating the entirety of its living, breathing past. The tourists who flock in daily generally photograph only the old steam engines, the roundhouse building, and the turntable. There are many important pieces of plant and equipment that have not been made accessible to tourists, or are too nondescript in appearance to attract much attention. Ordinary visitors aren’t likely to learn much about items like these unless a guide provides information about them.

Examples of such equipment at the Chang­hua roundhouse include the tipple and water crane, which supplied steam engines with coal and water. Similarly, the area used for cleaning locomotives has also long since been taken out of service.

And the original blacksmith shop is today an ordinary storage building. A casual visitor would never guess from its appearance what had once gone on in this building.

Yang Zhao­­ting feels that the Chang­­hua roundhouse could well replace Ba­gua Mountain as the biggest tourist draw in Chang­­hua County, and many railway buffs from Japan and the West come to Taiwan specifically to see the roundhouse. With so many visitors, there is a real need to make sure the visitor traffic is properly channeled.

He suggests that visitors ought to have a chance to get a close look at non-operational items, and that their safety must be assured when they are viewing the operational parts. Visitors are allowed to watch locomotives being serviced, but the site is, after all, a working facility. Locomotives enter and leave, and there is high-voltage equipment all over the place, so the issue of safety has to be given careful thought.

Every rail spur at the Chang­hua roundhouse connects to the north-south rail line. Locomotives of all descriptions pass through, some headed north, others south. Some run the inland route, while others go coastal. Everything leads to somewhere. This is not a musty display facility that gathers dust as visitors file past the exhibits.

“A rail line—including the trains, stations, and train sheds—goes lifeless once it’s disconnected from the rail network.” For Yang, who fought alongside other rail buffs to save the roundhouse over a decade ago when he was still in high school, preservation of the roundhouse building and the locomotive maintenance process was not the biggest accomplishment. In his view, the fact that the roundhouse remains connected to the rail network is the key factor that makes it a living piece of railway history.

The roundhouse in Changhua is a real, working locomotive maintenance facility that doubles as a museum where visitors can watch as locomotives are serviced.