Loren Aandahl’s “The Taiwan Railway: 1966-1970” brings together nearly 200 pictures of the country’s trains and railways from a period when infrastructure photography was strictly prohibited under martial law, the Taiwan Railway Administration said at the book’s launch March 24.
“These are very important images for Taiwan’s railway culture,” Dennis Ju, a TRA spokesman said.
“It is difficult to get even black-and-white pictures of the railways, yet most of the photos in Aandahl’s book are in color,” Ju said. “We appreciate his endeavor to share them with us.”
Son of a missionary father who came to Taiwan and settled in Hsinchu City in 1954, Aandahl spent 16 years with his parents in the country. He fell in love with trains as a boy, and when he got a camera as a high schooler and had to commute between Hsinchu and Taichung by train, he began to shoot railway scenes using slide film.
He said he also took pictures when travelling with his father and on weekends, and visited almost every corner of the island.
“Photography of military subjects and critical infrastructure was not allowed, so my photographic adventures were like playing cat and mouse with the police,” Aandahl said.
By the time he left Taiwan in 1970 to study in the U.S., Aandahl had collected a trove of 1,000 pictures. “For 40 years I protected them very carefully so that they wouldn’t be lost,” he said.
Divided into six chapters, the 176-page book covers old locomotives and railcars, mountain routes and bridges, with separate chapters dedicated to railway scenes in the Hsinchu area, southern and eastern Taiwan. It also includes 35 pictures provided by his parents and the Taiwan government.
“For railway researchers, his book makes visual what we only know about through written documents,” said Hung Chih-wen, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at National Taiwan Normal University and a Taiwan railway history expert.
For example, the book includes pictures taken by Aandahl’s mother of a serious railway accident in Hsinchu in 1963. “I had read about that before, but never found any pictures of it,” Hung said.
Calling Hsinchu his hometown and presenting the book as a gift to the people of Taiwan, Aandahl said, “I hope the book will help people in Taiwan appreciate their history, because it is not just about railways, it is about Taiwan history.” (THN)