View Full Version : Rail Logs:Remaining Train?
Here's a link which demonstrates that any link thru' Cambodia is almost certain to have to practically rebuild the entire main west-east trackbed from scratch. I suspect a man of Sihanouk's decadent tendencies wouldn't be seen dead riding on this line. It makes you wonder at what point in history it was royally endorsed:-
Cambodian Railway Overview (http://www.geocities.com/mr_shawn_naylor/asian_rails/cambodia/rrintro.html)
Right Royal Locos & Rolling Stock (http://www.geocities.com/mr_shawn_naylor/asian_rails/cambodia/equipment.html)
Asian Rails - Shawn Naylor (http://www.geocities.com/mr_shawn_naylor/asian_rails/index.html)
Yappofloyd
25-04-05, 11:44 AM
^ The Shawn Naylor Cambodian railway shots are great and capture the essence of the railways quite well. However, the carriages seem a bit cleaner than last time I rode one!
I never did get to upload the UN powerpoint presentation but one of these days when I can breath I'll find the time.
Khmeroverseas Blog with pictures, regarding the delapidation of Cambodian Railways. It might seem a rather obvious thing to say, but as it it's a blog you are going to have to scroll a bit further everyday to reach this article. And I guess it may eventually disappear or be moved to the archives. Whatever, it's an interesting blog! ;) :-
http://khmeroverseas.blogspot.com/
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1334/1379/400/cambodia1.jpg
2004 'The Cambodia Daily Weekend' Report on the imminent demise of the 'Train Lorry':-
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/off.htm
airlana
03-05-06, 07:05 PM
BBC - Asia Pacific has an "in pictures" on the slow train in Cambodia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_riding_the_slow_train_/html/1.stm
Perhaps of interest for the rail guys.
The text for picture 6 reads:-
"Many of the buildings and tracks date from early in the 20th century when the country was a French colony. The trains themselves are slightly newer, beginning life in Cambodia as cast-offs from various European railroads.
Now, the trains are dilapidated, bullet-scarred and often unusable."
and for picture 8
"In 2004 China gave Cambodia two new locomotives. They are not in regular use, as they cannot run on the country’s dilapidated tracks.
They sit — blue, shiny, new — in a barn in Phnom Penh."
airlana
The last running train in Cambodia, going each weekend from Phnom Penh to Battambang. It runs at under 20km an hour, can be easily out-run and remains one of the few places where you can ride the roof. Just watch out for the power lines. ... (more)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJ4CC1deHE
Without tediously listing them here, you will probably find other videos of the Bamboo Trains accompanying this one from Battambang: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOhR53QdMCQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJ4CC1deHE
Without tediously listing them here, you will probably find other videos of the Bamboo Trains accompanying this one from Battambang: -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOhR53QdMCQ
This Google Video is better. It shows the actual bogie being put on the rails at a station, and what to do when you meet other 'trains' and stray cows: -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2883517060636910423&q=thailand+train&hl=en
This Google Video is better. It shows the actual bogie being put on the rails at a station, and what to do when you meet other 'trains' and stray cows: -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2883517060636910423&q=thailand+train&hl=en
It appears that some people also refer to the 'Bamboo Trains' as 'Train Lorries'. The following description mentions that they are motorised platforms on wheels that can carry 20 bags of paddy or 20 people, but can be lifted off the tracks when another of their own kind - or very occasionally a real train - materialises. Thanks to the Cambodian Daily Weekend. Check it out! Some interesting stories: -
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/off.htm
Off the Rails
Train Lorry Travel Soon To Reach End of the Line
By Kay Kimsong
The Cambodia Daily
Standing beside his decaying lorry at Samrong Railroad Station in Phnom Penh last month, operator Phin Theoun anxiously waited for customers. The lorry, a wooden platform powered by a small engine that taxis customers up and down the railroad tracks, was falling apart—much like the business itself.
“It’s too difficult to earn money for a living,” he said, adding that a 5-km lorry ride costs 500 riel (about $0.13).
Phin Theoun, 42, is one of more than 300 others who operate lorries on the country’s two national railroad lines, one of which runs from Phnom Penh to Sisophon in Banteay Meanchey province, while the other stretches from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville.
The lorries, which cost from $200 to $300 to build, popped up in the early 1980s after Khmer Rouge rebels destroyed sections of the railroad, making long train rides impossible.
“At that time, the train was not able to run on the railroad,” said Thu Sara, chief of the administrative department at Royal Railways Cambodia, a division in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. “So the lorry replaced the train.”
The small platforms can reach speeds of 30 to 40 kph as they travel short distances, usually from one district to another.
The lorry business is risky, and not just because it is technically illegal. Besides steep competition for fares, lorry drivers must pay local railroad station chiefs 1,000 riel (about $0.25) daily to tell them the train schedule so they can avoid potentially fatal accidents. The lorry is light enough for operators to pick it up and take it off the tracks when they see a train coming.
Due to safety concerns and plans to link Cambodia’s railroads to an Asean rail system, the government now wants to rid the rails of lorries.
Officials expect the Council of Ministers to soon issue a directive banning lorries from operating on the rails.
“The lorry service is not safe,” Thu Sara said. “But it has become a popular way to travel locally. It is like a chronic disease.... It’s hard to cure.”
The tracks themselves, most of which were put in place about 80 years ago during the French colonial area, are worn out and unsafe. Besides natural deterioration, villagers living near the railroads have been accused of stealing wooden railroad ties to burn for cooking.
In April last year, a train car full of gasoline tipped over in Takeo province. Though no gasoline spilled and no passengers were hurt, rail officials said at the time that more accidents are likely because the tracks are too old and the government does not have the money to properly maintain them.
The cost of improving the railroads could run quite high. Of immediate concern to the government is beginning construction on a 48-km stretch of railway from Poipet town to Sisophon, estimated to cost $16.5 million. Completing that section would link Cambodia’s rail system to a planned Asean rail line from Singapore to Kunming, China.
“We are integrating into Asean, and the railway is a huge plan for Asean development,” said Sokhom Phekawanmony, director of Royal Railways Cambodia.
Malaysia agreed to provide $8 million worth of used equipment, including rail and tracks, Commerce Ministry Secretary of State Sok Siphana said in September. It remains to be seen from where the rest of the material and money will come, though officials said construction on the project could begin late this year.
Linking to the Asean railroad means the government will face the additional cost of improving the dilapidated tracks. About $100 million is needed to upgrade the rest of the 338-km rail segment from Sisophon to Phnom Penh, Sokhom Phekawanmony estimated. In addition, $300 million is needed to build a new railroad linking Phnom Penh to the Vietnam border.
As railroad developments get under way, lorry drivers like Phin Theoun will not be the only ones to suffer. The thousands of poor people who rely on lorries to trade goods or go to work will also be hurt.
“My salary cannot afford to pay the motodop,” Tha Saroun, a 20-year-old garment worker, said as she waited to hop on a lorry at Samrong rail station, located in Dangkao district.
She pays 500 riel to get from her home in Kandal province’s Ang Snoul district to Huy Fu garment factory in Dangkao. Motor taxi drivers usually charge her 5,000 riel (about $1.25) to make that trip—a devastating expense on a salary of about $1.15 per day.
Lorry drivers say they often help farmers transport rice from their villages to the market.
“My lorry can carry 20 bags of paddy or 20 people per trip,” said Yi Sopy, 41. “To stop the lorry service means that people will need to spend more money on transportation.”
Since the country’s railroads are not busy, and won’t be for the foreseeable future, now is not the time to ban lorries from the tracks, said opposition lawmaker Son Chhay.
“If you go abroad, you will see 50 trains come through the railroads every hour,” he said. “But our railroads carry only one or two trains per day.”
Nonetheless, with plans for the Asean rail links chugging along, the government intends to bounce lorries from the tracks.
“I think to stop lorry operators is good for them,” Sokhom Phekawanmony said, “because they will get the benefit from the railway’s development.”
Back at Samrong Railroad Station, however, Phin Theoun, has his doubts. He said he will demolish his lorry and burn the wood for cooking, while he will sell the engine.
But, as for his future income, he said he is uncertain what he will do. “Maybe I’ll go to the rice field to help people to harvest rice for money,” he said.
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/off.htm
http://hehe.org.free.fr/train/images/tapis_volant_2.jpg
It appears that some people also refer to the 'Bamboo Trains' as 'Train Lorries'. The following description mentions that they are motorised platforms on wheels that can carry 20 bags of paddy or 20 people, but can be lifted off the tracks when another of their own kind - or very occasionally a real train - materialises. Thanks to the Cambodian Daily Weekend. Check it out! Some interesting stories: -
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/off.htm
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/off.htm
Bit of an art phillistine myself. I reckon you can justify just about any kind of art, just so long as you don't start trying to rationalise it. HeHe's trains are clearly inspired by Cambodia's 'bamboo trains', as he includes a photo of one lower down the page. As to what tree he's trying to bark up, I have no idea! Enjoy!
http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/train/collage.jpg
http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/train/index.html
Six years old, but interesting human interest story: -
The Cambodia Daily, Thursday, February 22, 2001
Hazard Duty
Through Rocket Attacks, Land Mines and Armed Raids, Engineer
Kong Som Oeun Kept the Trains Rolling
By Saing Soenthrith
The Cambodia Daily
From his seat inside the steam engine, the train driver eyes the tracks ahead as he leads a long line of wagon cars toward Phnom Penh, the train’s wheels turning slowly beneath him on warped steel track.
It’s tricky work here on the route from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh, but the old driver knows this railroad well. He’s worked on it for more than 30 years.
At 63, he still moves easily inside the engine car, but his body is scarred from his work. His arms are marked where bullets grazed and mine shrapnel bored in.
That was the cost of driving a train during Cambodia’s years of civil war. A slow moving train was an easy target for hungry soldiers. He was shot at by men he could see and nearly blown up by mines he didn’t see until it was too late.
He felt responsible for his passengers’ lives but continued to drive through the worst years of turmoil because the trains were the only means of transportation for the country’s poor. If he stopped driving someone would not see their relatives; someone else would not sell their livestock.
That’s how he found himself navigating these tracks through the war years as the steam engine, chugging loudly along the railroad, gave him away to whoever lay along the route ahead, waiting.
“I still remember November 29th, 1979, when my train was attacked by the [Khmer Rouge] with six B40 rockets,” said the driver, Kong Som Oeun. He had been on the job for just a few months since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. The train rocked when the shells hit. He ran into the jungle with the surviving passengers as gunfire cracked behind their backs.
“They shot into the wagons, killing many passengers and train workers,” he said.
When they returned the next day the passengers found the train abandoned by the attackers. A lot of people died in that first ambush, said Kong Som Oeun. Among the bodies were 16 Khmer Rouge and 13 Vietnamese soldiers, acting as an onboard militia to protect the train.
Kong Som Oeun has been ambushed 13 times since he started driving locomotives in 1968. His trains have run over seven land mines. Raiding soldiers have stolen countless tons of food and cargo under his watch. And he’s among the lucky.
Since 1979, when the Khmer Rouge were driven into the jungle, seven train drivers for the Royal Railway of Cambodia have been killed in the line of duty. Another 167 train workers—from technicians and porters to militia who ride along to protect the trains—have been killed and 375 injured.
An official list kept by the railroad that documents deaths and injuries since 1983 says 712 passengers were killed during the ambushes. Another 1,521 passengers were injured.
Kong Som Oeun kept driving because he loved trains, he said, and because he knew that without the trains, countless numbers of Cambodia’s poor would be unable to move between Sihanoukville and Battambang.
“I have loved heavy engines since I was young,” he said. “It is interesting for my life. Especially the trains, because Cambodia does not have a lot of cars, and our people are poor. Most of them are farmers and our roads are poorly constructed so the trains are useful for transportation at a cheap price,” he said.
Kong Som Oeun started working for the railway in 1965. He was a technician for three years before he was made an engineer. When the country inaugurated a new rail line from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville on Dec 20, 1969, King Norodom Sihanouk gave him a medal for his service. Of all the train drivers who worked for the railroad that year, Kong Som Oeun is the only one still on the job.
His service to the nation’s railroads is all the more remarkable when considered against the backdrop of the revolving governments he worked for: until 1970, it was the rule of King Sihanouk. Then he worked under the US-backed Lon Nol regime. The Khmer Rouge toppled the government in 1975, then were toppled themselves four years later.
Through the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, from 1979 to 1990, then the State of Kampuchea from 1990 to 1993, and finally the Kingdom of Cambodia, Kong Som Oeun drove trains.
His years of service were interrupted only through Pol Pot’s regime. He fled the city in the mass evacuation of Phnom Penh, and then denied being a train driver when asked his profession by Khmer Rouge soldiers to avoid the dark fate that awaited almost everyone with professional training.
He lived in Takeo province until 1979, working at a labor camp and barely supporting his wife and one son. He returned to Phnom Penh in April 1979, just days after the Khmer Rouge regime fell to invading Vietnamese forces.
He led his family to the train station, where they found the engines destroyed and train cars abandoned. Along with 10 other former employees, he started to repair the available train engines, and service was soon restarted.
He continued to drive through the worst years of the fighting, when soldiers would ambush the train for food and whatever supplies they could steal. The tactics were usually the same, he said. First the train hit a mine, or was slammed by B40 rocket fire. Then the soldiers would open fire from the jungle, felling people as they ran out of the train in panic.
Kong Som Oeun ran with the passengers most of the time. Just once he stayed in the engine. Soldiers had climbed on top of the train and were shooting through the roof at the people inside. A scar on his right arm reminds him of that day, when a bullet glanced off of his body.
He has scars on his memory as well. In 1983, he returned to his disabled train after an ambush and saw an infant, still alive, miraculously unharmed, clinging to a dead woman in the wreckage.
Kong Som Oeun had to rely on the design of the train engines to withstand the attacks. Windows at the front of the engine were made as small as possible. A reinforced metal wall was installed on the front and sides of the train engines to deflect bullets.
To trigger land mines before they destroyed the engine, most trains began pushing two cargo cars in front. Passengers, aware that they were taking a risk, were allowed to ride in the cars for free.
A militia was also hired to ride with the trains to battle the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Lt Col Sok Neardey, chief of the railroad militia, said that from 1986 to 1996 the militia met Khmer Rouge ambushes 1,168 times. Some 21 militia members were killed and 125 injured.
Today Kong Som Oeun lives in a house near the tracks, where he and his wife raised three children. It’s so close to the tracks that his wife can take a few steps out their door and hand Kong Som Oeun lunch as he drives by on his way to Battambang or Sihanoukville.
Kong Som Oeun says he will retire soon. His hope is that the government will renovate the railroads before they fall into complete disrepair.
The numerous ambushes and raids took a tremendous toll on the railroad. Official records from the national railroad that go back as far as 1983 show that train ambushes destroyed nearly 10,000 track sections, each of them 10 to 20 meters long, for a total of up to 20 km of track. Some 450 wagon cars, 88 steel bridges, 76 concrete bridges and 46 culverts were also destroyed.
Kong Som Oeun said that unless the country moves to protect the railroads, they could all be lost.
“The world is developing up-to-date trains, but Cambodia is still using an out-of-date train system,” he said. The country has the one 1923 steam engine, and 7 diesel electric engines, imported from Czechoslovakia between 1990 and 1994.
The tracks themselves are as old as 70 years. The oldest section of track, the line from Phnom Penh to Battambang, was installed between 1929 to 1934.
Kong Som Oeun said the train used to move along the tracks at 55 to 80 km per hour, much faster than the speed the trains move today. Now, because the tracks are so bad, most trains rarely top 25 km an hour.
“If the government ignores the trains, it could be only 10 years or so before all of the engines are too damaged to work,” he said.
The attacks stopped in 1996, the same year that Ieng Sary led a mass defection of Khmer Rouge soldiers to join the government’s side in the ongoing war. That year there were 81 ambushes and just one person was killed. That was down from 1985, when 35 people were killed in attacks on trains.
A Khmer Rouge ambush in 1994 that ended in the abduction, and eventual execution, of three westerners scared most tourists off of the trains. But tourism officials now promote train travel in Cambodia by marketing the very thing that Kong Som Oeun says is in need of replacement: the antiquated steam engine.
“It’s a favorite for visitors, since around the world few countries are still using a steam engine,” said Rith Moeun, chief of marketing management for the national railway.
Local tour agencies have rented the steam engine several times for tour groups to visit Pursat, Takeo and Kompot provinces, said train driver Ouk Ourk.
“Western people enjoy it very much,” he said.
Kong Som Oeun said he has enjoyed it too, despite the ragged history of his time driving the nation’s trains. Retirement is coming in three to four months. After his years of piloting Cambodia’s trains, some might say it’s a miracle he made it tha
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/hazard_duty.htm
The pictures of Roberto Causin (date unknown) on: -
http://kambuworld.free.fr/FR-NW-battambang-gare-train.html
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-01.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-02.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-03.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-04.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-05.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-06.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-07.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-08.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-09.jpg
http://kambuworld.free.fr/photos/battambang-gare-10.jpg
Babelfish translation from French: -
The RAILWAY IN KAMPUCHEA, a heritage of the French colonial period. Before the seizure of power by the Khmer Rouges in 1975, the network of the Royal Railway of Cambodia, created in 1952, included two lines with metric gauge track: - a northern line, which connected Phnom Penh to the border post of Poipet (km 381). Built by the French Administration between 1927 and 1933 (open until Pursat on July 1, 1932, Battambang on December 1, 1932, Mongkolborey on June 1, 1933), the northern line had been prolonged into 1940-42 towards the border inhabitant of Thailand which it crossed to come to be welded with the Siamese network in station of Aranya Prathet (km 390). - a southern line, which attached the capital to the port of Sihanoukville (km 236). Established between 1960 and 1969 with the assistance of the Federal German Republic, China and France, the southern line had been closed as of the following year bus too exposed to the red attacks of Khmers. Before being driven out in 1979 by the Vietnamese Army, the Khmer Rouge were busy systematically destroying the system, leaving behind them only a phantom network. Restored in the years 1980 between Phnom Penh and Battambang in north - Sisophon in 1991 (upstream of Mongkolborey) in order to facilitate the return of the Kampuchean refugees in Thailand - and between Phnom Penh and Kompong Som (ex Sihanoukville) in the south, the two lines were the object, since then, of an about regular exploitation, although still subjected for a long time to the raids and exactions of the men of Pol Pot. In 1995, France and the Asian Development Bank took part in the restoration of the network with the respective help of 2 and 4 million dollars. The disorganization of the years since 1980 has let develop (illegally) a type of "line inspection cars" of all sizes, motorized or not, some for travellers, others for goods, which made it possible to mitigate the insufficiencies of the railroads. Thus the railway has been hijacked by illegal users, a process made worse by the small number of scheduled train journeys. The government intends to impose an hourly rate on such users after international projects have rebuilt the line to link Malaysia, Thailand, Kampuchea, Vietnam and China.
Guy called Roland Bol who works at Uppsala University in Finland posted some interesting pictures of his Cambodia & Thailand trip in December 2004. I've included a link to the main page here, but almost all the links from that page contain pictures of RCR steam & diesel trains, and even some SRT steam in Thailand to boot. The ancient monument pictures are worth a look too:
http://user.it.uu.se/~rolandb/reizen/cambodia/
http://user.it.uu.se/~rolandb/reizen/cambodia/small/HPIM0564.JPG
[Photo: Roland Bol]
This video comes highly recommended:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4qttp6nDts
November 2006
Enterprising locals in Battambang, Cambodia, have developed a unique railway. It's made from recycled tank wheels, small motorcycle engines and lashings of bamboo.
Cambodia's main train service only runs four times a month and derailments are common. Little wonder locals prefer a different option. 'Norries' are little more than bamboo slabs with wheels and run on the state-built track. With a top speed of 50 km per hour, the norry network is far superior to the train. As one driver explains; "People like these because they're fast and on time".
Added: September 04, 2007
Other posts on 'Bamboo Railways':
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showpost.php?p=6438&postcount=1
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showpost.php?p=12032&postcount=10
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showpost.php?p=12212&postcount=12
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showpost.php?p=12549&postcount=13
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showpost.php?p=13305&postcount=16
See also three previous posts.
Absolutely fascinating (recently updated) photographic record of RCR trains in action in 2006. For example picture, scroll down beneath the following quote:
Photos in the Cambodia Gallery are all courtesy of Richard Gennis and were taken in December 2006.
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.
http://www.phantasrail.com/cambodia.htm
http://www.phantasrail.com/Cambodia/ZQ1Z1746av.jpg
[Photo: Richard Gennis - The containers on the train are fixed bodies and are carrying bags of cement from Thailand.BB-1012 with the train for Phnom Penh seen from a temple 7km south of Mongkol Borei on December 30, 2006.This train later derailed.]
More photos:
http://www.gadling.com/photos/the-slowest-train-in-the-world-2/
Jul 5th 2008
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Slowest Train in The World
by Tynan Gadling
http://bp2.blogger.com/_hqgVFA7RYE4/SHA48kp6nXI/AAAAAAAAAw4/PAiCh_jCX3c/s400/Slowest+train+05+%28Tynan%29+insidegroup.jpg
[Photos: Tynan Gadling]
http://bp2.blogger.com/_hqgVFA7RYE4/SHA480wZXuI/AAAAAAAAAxA/PeQZls7TnYI/s400/Slowest+train+07+%28Tynan%29fruitlady.jpg
Cambodia has only one passenger train that still runs, and I'm on it right now.
Calling it a passenger train is a bit of a misnomer, though. Most of the few seats still attached to the floor are piled high with exotic fruits: durians, pineapples, and several others that I've eaten before but can't name. I think one's a jackfruit, and another might be a soursop.
Half of the back car is full of lumber which I helped load a few stops ago. I almost crushed my foot.
The train is slow, probably the slowest train in the world. The fastest I clocked it with my GPS was 17kph. That's fast enough that if you want to take a jog you can just hop out the back and run along.
The journey from Battambang, a city reasonably close to the Thai border, to Phnom Penh takes four hours by air conditioned bus. I've been on the train for 17 hours now and there's been no word on when we'll finally arrive. The official timetable claimed it would be 5 hours ago.
As I write I'm sitting in one of the wood benches, which puts me in the minority. Most people string up cloth hammocks in front of the open windows or ride on the roof.
I rode on the roof for a good part of the day. The local kids showed me how to jump from car to car as if I was part of an Indiana Jones movie.
When I arrived at the train station this morning there were a dozen other foreigners. Most of them stayed as long as Pursat, the big stop 5 hours in which allows the rest of the journey to be completed by bus.
Four of us are left. My friend Todd, a lonely planet writer named Andrew, and Laila who has been traveling for 4 months and is expecting to travel for another 12. Her seat is a huge bag of charcoal that she claims is more comfortable than my bench. She's probably right.
The train probably won't run for much longer. Giant holes in the roof douse everyone and their cargo when it rains. No attempt is made at repairing the gaping holes in the rotting floor that expose the wheels and the track below us.
We once stopped unexpectedly because one of the four car's bumpers had jumped onto another one's. [?????]
You might be wondering why anyone would ever ride this train, and you might be surprised that I couldn't possible recommend it any more. Why?
Because THIS is how to see Cambodia. Not all of it, of course, but it's a whopping serving of authentic Cambodian life.
From the rusted roof of the train you get an unrestricted view of the beautiful rice paddies that cover the countryside. You watch as families work together to harvest the rice and direct their Oxen.
Children run up to the train and wave and yell out the few English phrases they know.
The train makes a few short stops, mainly to load or unload lumber and fruits, and vendors run up with trays of food, illuminated by kerosene lanterns.
I've been to a lot of countries, and I'm not sure I've met friendlier people.
When the monks saw that Laina had only bought one bag of steamed rice, they bought her another bag and some eggs. The woman sitting near us insisted on holding my flashlight while we ate.
When a pineapple vendor started cutting up one of her pineapples on the train, I hurried over to buy it. She gave it to me and then absolutely refused to take money.
Everyone smiles and tries to talk to us. They show us how to tie our hammocks and warn us when the train is about to leave after a stop.
Traveling can be more about the journey than the destination. I haven't been to Phnom Penh yet, but I don't know how it will be more memorable and enjoyable than the ride over.
If you're in the area and you want a train ride of a lifetime, check out this page on seat61.com, which is an amazing resource for traveling by train, bus, or boat.
UPDATE: It took 24 hours total. A parting word of advice - buy a hammock in Battambang before you go. The locals will show you how to hang it.
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2008/07/slowest-train-in-world.html
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