Kagi Station (Chiayi Railway Station)

Kagi Station (嘉義驛, Kagi-eki), now known as Chiayi Railway Station (嘉義車站), is a historic railway station located in West District, Chiayi City, Taiwan. It has served as one of the most important transportation hubs in southern Taiwan for over a century.

Origins and First-Generation Station (1902–1933)

Kagi Station was established on April 20, 1902, when the southern section of Taiwan's Western Main Line (縱貫線), built by the Railway Department of the Government-General (臺灣總督府鐵道部), reached Chiayi. The original station was a wooden structure typical of early colonial-era railway architecture.

In 1912, the Alishan Forest Railway (阿里山林業鐵道) was completed and linked to Kagi Station, making it the starting point of one of the world's most remarkable mountain railways. This narrow-gauge (762mm) line, originally built to transport valuable cypress and spruce timber from the Alishan mountains, climbed from 30 meters above sea level at Chiayi to over 2,000 meters. Meanwhile, the sugar railway (糖業鐵路) of the Meiji Sugar Company also connected to the station area, creating a unique three-railway convergence (三鐵共構) — mainline, forest, and sugar railways sharing a single station complex.

The 1933 Reinforced-Concrete Station Building

By the late 1920s, the growing city of Kagi (elevated to city status in 1930) demanded a modern station worthy of its regional importance. In 1929, the Railway Bureau initiated a reconstruction project. The new station, designed by the Railway Department architect Ushiki Takeo (宇敷赳夫) and completed in June 1933, was one of Taiwan's early steel-reinforced concrete railway stations — completed slightly earlier than the famous Tainan Station. Designed in a classical symmetric style with simplified gables and geometric Art Deco ornamentation, the building represented a significant shift from wooden colonial stations to modern earthquake-resistant construction. This was partly influenced by lessons from the devastating 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, which accelerated the adoption of reinforced concrete throughout the empire.

Wartime Military Transport Role (1937–1945)

Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the Pacific War in 1941, Kagi Station became a vital military logistics node. The station's unique convergence of three railway networks made it indispensable for:

• Troop movement: Transporting soldiers to southern ports (Kaohsiung/Takao) for deployment to Southeast Asian theaters.
• Resource extraction: The Alishan Forest Railway continued to carry strategic timber resources down to the plains for military construction and shipbuilding.
• Industrial supply: The sugar railways transported not only sugar but also military-grade ethanol (produced at nearby sugar refineries as a petroleum substitute) and other wartime materials.
• Airfield logistics: Kagi Station served as a logistical waypoint for the nearby Kagi Airfield (嘉義飛行場), supporting the movement of aviation fuel, ammunition, and personnel.

Allied Air Raids (1945)

As Allied forces intensified their air campaign against Taiwan in 1945, Chiayi's railway infrastructure became a priority target:

• April 3, 1945: USAAF bombers struck the rail yard (駅構) inside Kagi Station, targeting marshaling yards, locomotives, and rolling stock. The station building itself sustained partial damage. Incendiary bombs ignited fires that spread through the wooden commercial district in front of the station. The main roads (Datong/大通 and Ertong/二通, now Zhongshan Road and Zhongzheng Road) were lined with densely packed timber-frame shops and residences, and the resulting conflagration destroyed 1,901 buildings in the city.
• May 1, 1945: A second major raid targeted the broader Chiayi city area, causing further destruction.
• May 11, 1945: U.S. aerial reconnaissance photographs taken on this date show the devastated station district in ruins.

Despite the severe damage to the rail yard and surrounding urban fabric, the reinforced-concrete station building survived structurally intact — a testament to its modern construction. Postwar repairs restored the exterior and interior, though the building underwent multiple renovations over the decades.

The February 28 Incident (1947)

Chiayi Station bears an additional layer of tragic historical significance. During the February 28 Incident (二二八事件), following island-wide unrest against the KMT government's authoritarian rule, Chiayi was one of the most heavily affected cities. On March 25, 1947, four prominent Chiayi City Council members — the renowned painter Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波), physician Pan Mu-zhi (潘木枝), Ke Lin (柯麟), and Lu Bing-qin (盧鈵欽) — were publicly executed by firing squad in the plaza in front of Chiayi Station. This event remains one of the most iconic and painful memories of the 228 Incident.

Heritage Preservation and Current Status

The 1933 station building was designated a Chiayi City Protected Heritage Site on October 15, 1998. Like Hsinchu and Tainan stations, it is a major Japanese-era station building still in active service. The station continues to serve both the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) Western Main Line and the Alishan Forest Railway, maintaining its century-old role as a multi-modal transportation hub. A major urban redevelopment project — the Chiayi Urban District Elevated Railway Project — is planned to elevate the rail corridor through the city while preserving the heritage station building.