Elwyn
Member
The Battambang Bamboo Railway has been a tourist attraction in Cambodia for some years now. There was a dormant standard gauge line from Phnomh Penh to the Thai border, disused since the 1980s or thereabouts. Locals in the Battambang area had built simple bamboo wagons to propel along the disused tracks to the paddy fields and nearby villages. Originally powered by a bamboo pole they later installed simple engines with a drive belt and motored along. Inevitably this became a tourist attraction. You can find plenty of film of it on Youtube.
The Cambodia authorities have decided to re-open the line to conventional rail traffic again and so the Bamboo trains have been evicted. Engineering work is well advanced and a lot of the line has now been re-laid. It’s scheduled to open in 2018, but there’s a lot of slippage with Cambodian projects, so who knows.
However an enterprising local has built a replacement Bamboo railway nearby at Phnom Banan which runs towards Phnom Sampeau (famous for it’s killing caves and for a nightly bat exodus lasting several hours). The line opened a few weeks ago. At present it is about 3km long and runs along the edge of the jungle at the foot of the hills. It just ends in an open field at the moment, where there’s a man selling drinks. That’s all, but there are plans to extend it up to the bat caves in due course. Return fare for foreigners is $5 US. Locals pay much less.
The passenger trucks are made of bamboo, sit on 2 sets of axles and are propelled by a 2 stroke engine. They run in convoy, 20 or 30 yards apart, up to 6 at a time, depending on how many passengers there are. You sit cross legged and there are typically 10 or so passengers on each one. (All locals when I was there last week. The tourists don’t seem to have discovered it yet). Some of the curves are quite tight and there’s a fair bit of tortured metal squealing when you round them. Nothing really to hang on to, except other passengers. There’s no reverse gear, so at the end of the line the driver and his mate lift the whole truck up and turn it to face the other way, for the return journey. UK Health & Safety authorities would have a fit if it opened here. Well worth a visit if you are in that part of Cambodia.
The Cambodia authorities have decided to re-open the line to conventional rail traffic again and so the Bamboo trains have been evicted. Engineering work is well advanced and a lot of the line has now been re-laid. It’s scheduled to open in 2018, but there’s a lot of slippage with Cambodian projects, so who knows.
However an enterprising local has built a replacement Bamboo railway nearby at Phnom Banan which runs towards Phnom Sampeau (famous for it’s killing caves and for a nightly bat exodus lasting several hours). The line opened a few weeks ago. At present it is about 3km long and runs along the edge of the jungle at the foot of the hills. It just ends in an open field at the moment, where there’s a man selling drinks. That’s all, but there are plans to extend it up to the bat caves in due course. Return fare for foreigners is $5 US. Locals pay much less.
The passenger trucks are made of bamboo, sit on 2 sets of axles and are propelled by a 2 stroke engine. They run in convoy, 20 or 30 yards apart, up to 6 at a time, depending on how many passengers there are. You sit cross legged and there are typically 10 or so passengers on each one. (All locals when I was there last week. The tourists don’t seem to have discovered it yet). Some of the curves are quite tight and there’s a fair bit of tortured metal squealing when you round them. Nothing really to hang on to, except other passengers. There’s no reverse gear, so at the end of the line the driver and his mate lift the whole truck up and turn it to face the other way, for the return journey. UK Health & Safety authorities would have a fit if it opened here. Well worth a visit if you are in that part of Cambodia.
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