Taipei Main Station (臺北車站) is where Taipei's rail lines meet: the High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railway, three MRT lines and the Taoyuan Airport MRT. Around and under it run four underground shopping streets, each with its own color and exit letter. Learn the letters and the station stops being a maze. For old trains, the Railway Department Park is a short walk west, and the National Railway Museum is across town in the old Taipei Railway Workshop.
| Exit letter | What it is | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| M | Taipei Main Station on the MRT (Red Line R10, Blue Line BL12) | The metro |
| Y (yellow), Y1 to Y28 | Taipei City Mall (台北地下街) | Anime, games, figures, capsule toys, electronics, cheap eats |
| Z (pink), Z1 to Z10 | Station Front Metro Mall (站前地下街) | Digital entertainment, clothes and shoes, food |
| R | Zhongshan Metro Mall (中山地下街) | The underground walk north to Zhongshan and Shuanglian, and Taiwan's longest book street |
| K | The K zone mall | One more underground arcade beside the station |
The station: six lines under one roof
Taipei City Government counts six lines in the station district: Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR), Taiwan Railway (TRA), the MRT's Tamsui-Xinyi (Red), Bannan (Blue) and Songshan-Xindian (Green) lines, and the Taoyuan Airport MRT. On the Taipei Metro the station is R10 on the Red Line and BL12 on the Blue Line; the Green Line stops at Beimen (G13), at the far west end of the underground malls. The Airport MRT is a separate railway with its own station, A1, a short walk west of the main hall.
- MRT Taipei Main Station (Red Line R10, Blue Line BL12); Beimen Station (Green Line, G13) for the west end
- Trains Taiwan Railway and the High Speed Rail, both from the same station
- Airport Taoyuan Airport MRT, Taipei Main Station (A1)
→ The MRT · Getting to Taipei from the airport
How not to get lost: read the letters
Every exit around the station has a letter and a number, and the letter tells you which system you are in. The MRT station's own exits start with M: M8, for example, leads up toward Gongyuan Road, and M6 toward the Caesar Park hotel. Each underground mall has a color and a letter of its own, according to the city government:
- Y, yellow: Taipei City Mall. Y1 to Y28. Odd numbers are on the north side, even numbers on the south, and they count up from east to west.
- Z, pink: Station Front Metro Mall. Z1 to Z10, numbered the same way: odd north, even south, east to west.
- R: Zhongshan Metro Mall, heading north.
- K: the K zone, the fourth arcade.
So before you go down, find out which exit you need, and follow that letter's color. If you are meeting someone, name an exit number, not "the station".
Taipei City Mall: the Y exits
Taipei City Mall (台北地下街) runs under Civic Boulevard and is, by Taipei City's count, the largest and longest underground street in Taiwan, linking the TRA, HSR, MRT, Airport MRT, Beimen Station and the Taipei Bus Station. It has four zones: clothing, everyday goods, electronics, and food. The part most visitors come for is the stretch of shops selling video games, anime, figures and capsule toys, which has earned it the nickname "Akihabara of Taipei".
- Hours Monday to Friday 11:00 to 21:30; Saturday and Sunday 11:00 to 22:00. Shops keep their own hours inside that
- Address B1, No. 100, Section 1, Civic Boulevard, Zhongzheng District
- MRT Taipei Main Station (Red Line R10, Blue Line BL12) or Beimen Station (Green Line, G13); exits Y1 to Y28
Zhongshan Metro Mall: the R exits, north to Shuanglian
Zhongshan Metro Mall (中山地下街), run by Taipei Metro, is an 815-meter underground street from Taipei Main Station through Zhongshan Station to Shuanglian Station: a dry, air-conditioned way to walk north on a wet day. It has shops for everyday goods, clothes, food and drinks, and between Zhongshan Station and Jazz Square it becomes Taiwan's longest book street, with books, stationery, design goods and coffee. Above it runs the linear park between Zhongshan and Shuanglian, with a creative market on the second weekend of each month.
- Hours Daily 11:00 to 22:00; the book street's bookshops 10:00 to 21:30, its design shops and cafes 11:00 to 21:30
- MRT Taipei Main Station (R10), Zhongshan (Red Line R11, Green Line G14) or Shuanglian (Red Line, R12)
Station Front Metro Mall: the Z exits
Station Front Metro Mall (站前地下街) is the smaller arcade with the pink Z exits, Z1 to Z10. Its own website sorts its shops into digital entertainment, clothes and shoes, accessories and department-store goods, and food. It does not publish mall-wide hours, so treat it as a daytime and evening walk-through.
- MRT Taipei Main Station (Red Line R10, Blue Line BL12); exits Z1 to Z10
East Metro Mall, if you are in the east
Not at the main station, but built the same way: East Metro Mall (東區地下街) runs about 725 meters underground between Zhongxiao Fuxing and Zhongxiao Dunhua stations, with fashion, cosmetics, accessories, electronics and food. It is handy for shopping in the East District when it rains.
- Hours Daily 11:00 to 22:00
- MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing (Blue Line BL15, Brown Line BR10) or Zhongxiao Dunhua (Blue Line, BL16)
The station's own mall is changing hands
The shops and restaurants inside the station building, on the first and second floors and B1, were run by Breeze for 19 years. Shin Kong Mitsukoshi took over on July 25, 2026. Most shops signed on to stay, and the new operator plans to renovate zone by zone while staying open, with the work expected to finish in 2028. Expect some hoardings and new names on the food floors.
Old trains: the Railway Department Park
A short walk west of the station, the Railway Department Park (國立臺灣博物館鐵道部園區) is the National Taiwan Museum's railway branch, in the old headquarters of the Japanese-era Railway Department, a national historic site. The site began as a Qing-dynasty arsenal in 1884 and became the Taipei Railway Factory in 1900; the main office building was finished in 1918. The buildings are the main exhibit: a permanent show tells the story of the site and its restoration, and the old offices, staff canteen and even an octagonal men's washroom from 1919 are part of the visit. Railway exhibitions, on everything from signals and bridges to tickets and railway lunch boxes, have filled the rooms in recent years; they change, so check the museum's exhibition page for what is on.
- Hours Tuesday to Sunday 09:30 to 17:00; ticket booth until 16:30. Closed Mondays and on Lunar New Year's Eve and Day; open on national holidays
- Entry NT$100; NT$50 for students and children 6 to 12. A combo ticket for all four National Taiwan Museum branches is NT$130. Free for under-6s
- Address No. 2, Section 1, Yanping North Road, Datong District
- MRT Beimen Station (Green Line, G13), Exit 2, or Airport MRT Taipei Main Station (A1), Exit 6, about a minute's walk
The National Railway Museum
The National Railway Museum (國家鐵道博物館) is in the old Taipei Railway Workshop, a national historic site in Xinyi District where Taiwan Railway serviced its trains from 1935 until the workshop moved to Taoyuan in 2013. The first phase opened on July 31, 2025, and restoration of the rest of the site is still going on. Today you can see the Diesel Workshop, now a permanent exhibition with real locomotives and railcars, the old general office, the 1930s staff bathhouse and the great hall. On weekends and holidays, restored heritage trains give short rides inside the site.
- Hours Tuesday to Sunday 09:30 to 17:00, last tickets 16:30. Closed Mondays, except some Monday holidays
- Entry The grounds are free. Diesel Workshop exhibition NT$100 (NT$50 for students, and for over-65s on weekends and holidays; free for under-6s and for over-65s on weekdays)
- Train rides Weekends and national holidays, 10:00 to 16:00 on a timetable. NT$150 one way, NT$75 for children 6 to 11 and over-65s. Buy online or on the day
- Address No. 50, Section 5, Civic Boulevard, Xinyi District
- MRT Nanjing Sanmin Station (Green Line, G18), Exit 2 or 3, about 10 minutes on foot; or Taipei City Hall (Blue Line, BL18), about 15 minutes
Ride the real thing
For a working old-style railway, take the train out to the Pingxi Line, the little branch line through the hills to Shifen and Jingtong. → Pingxi and Shifen day trip
Landing at Taoyuan Airport, the Airport MRT brings you straight into the station at A1. → Getting to Taipei
Good to know: staying near Taipei Main Station means every train, the airport line and two MRT lines are downstairs. Before you book, check which exit is closest to your hotel; it can save you a long underground walk with your bags. → Where to stay
→ All things to do · The MRT · Shopping
Sources
Lines and exit letters: Taipei City Government, how to tell the underground mall exit codes apart. M exits: Mirror Media (August 2024) on Taipei Metro's M8 and M6 exits. Taipei City Mall: Taipei Travel. Zhongshan Metro Mall: Taipei Metro, Zhongshan Metro Mall. Station Front Metro Mall: its website. East Metro Mall: Taipei Travel and Taipei Metro. The station mall handover: UDN (July 24, 2026) and Storm Media. Railway Department Park: National Taiwan Museum, hours and admission, getting here, history and exhibitions, and Taipei Times. National Railway Museum: visitor information, getting there, train rides and its home page, and Focus Taiwan (July 2025).
Checked October 2026.