Koh Santepheap : Asean Rail Projects met in Ho Chi Minh City agreed to restore Cambodian Railroad
Two projects on the restoration and development of Cambodia railways have been approved by Asean Rail Projects recently, said a senior official of Royal Railway of Cambodia. The first rail project will run 48 km from Sisophon to Poipet town, where it will link to Royal Thai Railway on Thai-Cambodian border and the second project will link 255 km from Kampong Speu’s Batdeng Station running across Kampong Cham province to meet up against Vietnam’s Loc Ninh province, according to Sokhom Peakavorn Muny, Deputy Secretary-General of Royal Railway of Cambodia upon his return from Asean Rail Project Meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, December 5-6. An agreement for the first project has already been signed at the meeting chaired by Malaysia and will be renovated by the Malaysian side and worth $16 million, as the second project is being studied and might be renewed in the near future, said Muny. When built, the railways will give a boost to businesses and tourism of Asean and the triple countries —Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. But Cambodia have three things to do ahead of the restoration project. The most impoverished Southeast Asian Country must first clear the landmines buried along the existing railway and the one to be constructed, and move away illegal resettlement on and around the projects and ban lorries from travelling on the railroad ( ! ).

ChimS1 : The train is a dying industry. Amtrack is a loosing money proposition and heavily subsidized. They should be considering building more freeways.

N.P. : Cambodia and other ASEAN countries are not USA or Canada. Even the old Europe was not and is not USA or Canada. I remember when I was in Montreal for the very first time in 1974 and wanted to go to Quebec City by train. My friends laughed at me and said I should take the bus instead. Yes Amtrack, CP Rail, CN Rail lose money in passenger transportation but they make it at least even in merchandise traffic. The ASEAN transport authorities surely bet on the tremendous volume of goods to be exchanged with China. Train on land is what ship is at sea and barge in river. Our country has already the old railway Phnompenh-Poipet and the "new" Sametthi Sangkum built with hands by me and you and all other Kohn Chao Samdech Ov in the 1960s. The problem is the two lines are metric. To my view they should not only make reparations but change completely both the railway width and the train bogie (from 1m to the modern "double").

HUMOUR DE LA SEMAINE
15 DÉCEMBRE 2003