> home > travels > cambodia > trains

cambodia 2006 - cambodian trains
solo backpacking , 29th June - 9th July, 2006

video - Last of the Cambodian trains
can't see this video? download flash here

Cambodia has two rail lines, both originating in Phnom Penh, totalling about 612 kilometres of single, one-meter-gauge track. Today, due to the lack of funds to maintain the tracks and rolling stock, only one train runs per week. It goes North to Battambang on Saturdays and returns to Phnom Penh on Sundays and I completed part of this journey in July 2006

Running at less than 20km an hour, the journey (around 4 hours by road), takes up to 17 hours. Pulled by a 1994 Czech yard-engine, "sleeper class" consists of a hammock and the tracks are clearly visible through the crumbling wooden flooring. The train rocks, often alarmingly, from side to side but the beautiful countryside passing by makes up for it. Foreigners pay double, but tickets are still cost next to nothing. During the journey, the train becomes a village market, and if the hustle and bustle becomes too much, you can escape to the roof. Cambodia is one of the last places where you can still ride on the roof, though be careful to duck when a power line comes along.

During the Khmer Rouge years in the late 1970s, one carriage would carry a huge gun turret whilst an empty one was attached to the front of the locomotive. This empty carriage was for "landmine clearance" and was free of charge to sit in!

China recently donated some new diesel-electric locomotives, but they stand eerily unused in a shed as the tracks are too dilapidated to handle them.

The dilapidated railways network connecting Phnom Penh to Sisophon and Sihanoukville will be repaired in 2007.

links:

• More videos from Cambodia
• Seat 61 - Guide to Cambodian Trains
• Wikipedia - Transport in Cambodia
• A local solution to the closing lines

> home > travels > cambodia > trains