This short leisure path in Yilan’s Dongshan Township follows the decommissioned cement-factory branch line belonging to the Ruentex Cement Factory.

Jump to the bottom of this post for a trail map and GPX file.

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Though the tracks used to run all the to Dongshan Station, the renovated section of track picks up from where the route intersects with Provincial Highway No.9, right beside a handily placed brunch/coffee shop.

This first 200-metre stretch has two old trolley carts, which are pushable and capable of holding up to six (smallish-to-average-sized) passengers. Given the relative youth of this line, I think it’s unlikely handcars like this were ever seriously used for transportation, but they were used extensively throughout Taiwan during the early years of Japanese occupation.

The tracks reach the first of three level crossings. There is a small clothes-washing pavilion just a short way away on the right, though if you weren’t aware of what you were looking for, all you’d see is some sheltered steps leading down to a creek.

When I arranged my trip to Dongshan Township, I hadn’t actually planned to visit this trail at all. In fact, I wasn’t aware it even existed. But I finished my explorations of the nearby Dongshan River Bikeway kind of early, so I looked around on the map and spotted that there was an old line here that I could explore. I hadn’t realised that the line features two short sections with little velocarts, so finding them was a moment of pure delight. Sure, each one only had a 50-100-metre section of track to explore, but how neat!

The two carts are split by a platform straddling the creek. As I stepped onto it, a series of short sharp squeak and a flash of electric blue let me know I’d started the resident kingfisher.

I may not look like I’m traveling in style, but I was definitely having fun.

If you look left at the second road crossing, you’ll see Zhen’an Temple (鎮安宮). According to an information board nearby, the temple was built by early Han and Hakka settlers to avoid having to travel to what was then called Huoshao Cheng Wangye Temple (火燒城王爺廟 — this has since transformed or maybe merged into Lanyang Daxing Zhen’an Temple 蘭陽大興振安宮). The reason they did this wasn’t pure laziness. The incomers had encroached on Indigenous land and as a result, there were frequent clashes.

I’m not sure if this property has been abandoned or just never got completed or maybe both. I also wonder whether it was built using cement from the nearby factory.

At the third and final road level crossing — there’s actually another temple (Shijia Yuan Tudi Gong Temple, or 十甲園土地公廟) just a short distance away to the left, but it’s not as impressive as the first.

Pillars of the rural community: a farmer in his straw hat and a timid dog (barely big enough to fit his gangly puppy legs) pretending he’s a very brave sentinel.

Surrounded by trees and devoid of child-pleasing gimmicks like ride-on carts, this final third is much more overgrown than the first two. It looks like someone — possibly a thrush or a relative of a thrush — has been using the rails as an anvil to crack open snails because the sleepers were littered with cracked shells.

The end of the line for walkers comes atop a small bridge, a short distance away from the still-working cement factory.

A creek running below the bridge irrigates little patches of farmland, and upstream, I spotted a flock of egrets gathered in a fish pond.

The most logical way back would be to retrace your steps, but I wanted to see if I could get a shot of the factory, so I returned to the previous junction, then doubled back to follow the road that would take me closer to the facility. In early September, the rice was approaching peak ripeness, meaning the foreground was a wash of bright green.

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Ruentex Old Cement Railway Trail Map and Transportation Info

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Nearby trails:

• Dongshan River Bikeway
• Naoliaokeng Trail
• Qixingling Trail
• Snake Hill and Dongyue Cold Spring
• Xinliao Waterfall