This lit the fuse for privatization of this railway, which was losing hundreds of millions of NT dollars per year for the Chiayi Forest District Office (a division of the Forestry Bureau of the Council of Agriculture in the central government).
年虧損約 2 億元台幣、原就被主管單位嘉義林管處視為燙手山芋的森林鐵路，因此埋下了改由民間接手的導火線。