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Photos in the Cambodia Gallery are all courtesy of Richard Gennis and were taken in December 2006, there are also 4 photos from Pete Foster from January 2008 Cambodian Railways is a 603km metre gauge system with the northern line running from Phnom Penh to Sisophon and the southern line running from Phnom Penh to the port of Sihanoukville (on the Gulf of Thailand). The northern line has only one passenger train each way per week between Phnom Penh and Battambang whilst the passenger trains on the southern line finished 5 years ago. The Railway is down to 10 operational locomotives. On average there is one freight train a day on both the northern and southern lines and because of the state of the track they are limited to 5km an hour in many places. Derailments are frequent and expected. The oil trains from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh have the equivalent of a man walking in front of it with a red flag, in this case it is a motorised trolley with a red flag checking on the condition of the track - 5km per hour is the normal speed. Freight carried is usually oil or cement. Security is a problem and each freight train conveys a wooden van that holds five security guards. The state of most of the rolling stock can best be described as life expired. Working locos are both French and Czech built together with two new unusable Chinese diesels. It is difficult to believe that there is a more neglected railway system anywhere in the world Cambodia has no railway link to Thailand as the Khmer Rouge blew up the section north of Sisophon to the Thai border at Poipet (48Km) but Malaysia has recently donated sufficient rails to re-establish this link. The railway is due to be privatised during 2007
Inside the shed at Phnom Penh on December 18, 2006 where work to repair BB-1056 and BB-1055 has been abandoned UPDATES New page February 29, 2008 : Phnom Penh (6) Updated page January 14, 2007 : Passenger Train New pages January 09, 2007 : Mongkol Borei Mongkol Borei (2) Derailed Sisophon Updated pages January 09, 2007 : Track Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (2) New pages January 07, 2007 : Bamboo Railway Battambang (2) Track Updated pages January 07, 2007 : Battambang Passenger Train Phnom Penh (5) Rolling Stock Steam New pages January 06, 2007 : Kampot Oil Train Passenger Train Phnom Penh (5) Updated pages January 06, 2006 : Rolling Stock Steam New pages January 04, 2007 : Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (2) Phnom Penh (3) Phnom Penh (4) Rolling Stock Steam Battambong Return to Far East Galleries Index page The copyright on all photos is strictly reserved by the author / Phantasrail Galleries This Gallery is now complete
Page last updated : Friday February 29, 2008 19:03
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