Lorry travelers concerned with railroad closure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n4T09nLy6A&feature=player_embedded

Drivers prepare last tickets for Cambodia's flying carpets

(Photo: AFP)

By Robert Carmichael, VOA
Nov 4, 2010

Pursat, Cambodia - Legions of children worldwide know flying carpets as a magical way to travel from one place to another, but in Cambodia they have been a way of life for decades.

Cambodia's flying carpets, of course, are substantially different from those found in fairytales. For a start this version is a lot noisier. But they have long proved a convenient way for people to travel with their goods along the decrepit national rail system.

To get from one village to the next, locals pay 50 cents and tourists a few dollars. There is no first class, and there are no seats or sides. Passengers hop onto a bamboo platform the size of a double bed, which sits on two sets of steel wheels.

Next, the driver attaches a small motor, connects a fan belt between the engine and the rear wheels, and within minutes you are clattering along buckled tracks at 40 kilometres an hour, enjoying an uninterrupted view of rice fields, sugar palms and water buffalo.

It is a scenic and unusual way for hardier tourists to see rural Cambodia, but for locals the flying carpet has proved a lifeline.

There are dozens of these flying carpets, or norries, running along stretches of the battered railway, but within a year they will be gone, brushed aside as the country's once-defunct national railway is brought back to life.

The railway rehabilitation project is expected to cost 142 million dollars. Just over half will come from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Australia and the Cambodian government will provide most of the rest.

The railway shut down completely a year ago, and fixing it is an important step in improving the country's infrastructure, which was devastated by years of war and neglect.

Ten years ago many roads were so bad that speeds between the main towns and cities could be as low as 10 kilometres an hour.

So those lucky enough to live near the railway were happy to pay small sums to be transported at much quicker speeds on flying carpets.

Veteran norrie driver Prak Phea has been driving this stretch of track outside Pursat town for 17 years. He has a wife and child, and this job nets him up to 50 dollars a week, a decent wage in rural Cambodia where jobs are very limited.

The railway upgrade is meant to ensure that the local government pays compensation to those affected. In the case of norrie drivers, who are self-employed, that sum is set at 250 dollars.

But 11 of the 15 norrie drivers operating out of Prak Phea's village received nothing.

He says government officials turned up unannounced one day and wrote down the names of only those drivers who happened to head down the line. Prak Phea was not one of those, and he is annoyed.

'It is not fair, because they could have just asked local officials here who could have provided a list of norrie drivers to pay money to,' he says, adding that he tried to complain but got nowhere.

Back in Phnom Penh, the ADB's country head Putu Kamayana promises the bank will take that up with the government.

Then turning to the broader topic, Kamayana explains this project will rehabilitate 600 kilometres of track from Poipet on the Thai border through to Phnom Penh and on to the southern port of Sihanoukville.

The upgraded railway will take cargo off the roads, particularly bulk cargo and dangerous loads such as fuel.

'That will reduce the damage to the highway network and also improve the safety on the roads,' he says.

The first stretch, running from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, officially re-opened to container traffic in late October.

And once the upgrade of the existing network is completed in 2013, the sole missing link between Singapore and China will be the railway between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam.

Earlier this month China announced it would fund the Cambodian stretch, which ought to be finished by 2015.

But long before that Prak Phea will have worked out his next step.

'Perhaps I will plant rice - I have a half-hectare of land,' he says, before adding hopefully, 'Or perhaps I will get a job on the railway.'

And with that he starts the engine and heads for home, his flying carpet skittering west along the rickety track, back to Pursat.

Opening of Cambodia Railroad Puts Pan-Asian Railway Firmly on Track

The Auto Channel

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - October 24, 2010: The first segment of a new international standard railroad officially opened in Cambodia today, a major step towards the creation of a long-awaited Pan-Asian railroad.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing $84 million in support of the reconstruction and repair of 650 kilometers (404 miles) of rail stretching from Cambodia’s border with Thailand, through the capital city of Phnom Penh, and southward to Sihanoukville, the country’s main seaport.

The Government of Australia is providing an additional $21.5 million in support of the $141 million project.

Freight rail service has commenced along a 120 kilometer (75 mile) stretch of rail between Phnom Penh and Touk Meas, near the Vietnamese border. The entire rail line is scheduled to be operational by 2013.

“We are on the cusp of a contiguous Iron Silk Road stretching from Singapore to Scotland,” said Kunio Senga, Director General of ADB’s Southeast Asia Department. “This possibility has been talked about for decades, but today the dream has finally taken a big step toward becoming reality.”

Decades of conflict have left Cambodia’s railroad in serious disrepair, with rail traffic slowly declining to a trickle.

In some parts of the country homemade lorries – simple, makeshift bamboo platforms powered by water-pump motors – are the main form of rail transport along the antiquated tracks.

Cambodia’s less developed transportation network and the country’s higher transportation costs result in higher prices for imported and locally made goods compared to neighboring countries.

The new railway will help lower the cost of staple commodities that poor Cambodian families rely on for sustenance.

“This new railroad represents another important step for Cambodia in overcoming its legacy of conflict,” said Mr. Senga. “With better infrastructure and closer economic ties with its neighbors, Cambodia’s people are enjoying a peace dividend more than ever before.”

Once Cambodia’s new railroad is finished, only one remaining link, between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, will remain before a pan-Asian railway is complete.

Cambodia and Viet Nam have already signed an agreement to link their railways, and the People’s Republic of China is supporting a design study on a rail link from Phnom Penh to Loc Ninh, Viet Nam.

The railway rehabilitation project is a vital component of the Greater Mekong Subregion’s southern economic corridor – linking Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam – and is a key component of ASEAN’s Singapore-Kunming Rail Link Project.

Other co-financiers of the rail project include the OPEC Fund for International Development ($13 million) and Government of Malaysia ($2.8 million grant in kind).

The Government of Cambodia is providing $20.3 million towards the rail project.

Toll Holdings, an Australian company, has been awarded a 30-year contract to operate and maintain the rehabilitated railway system.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, it is owned by 67 members – 48 from the region. In 2009, it approved a total of $16.1 billion in financing operations through loans, grants, guarantees, a trade finance facilitation program, equity investments, and technical assistance projects. ADB also mobilized cofinancing amounting to $3.2 billion.

Winners and losers as Cambodia reopens railway

October 25, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Cambodia has re-opened a 110-kilometre stretch of railway track, as a first step towards boosting regional trade with its neighbours.

It's hoped by 2013, the railway will link the capital Phnom Penh to its borders with Thailand and Vietnam. The first section which was officially opened on the weekend, runs 120-kiloemtres southwest from Phnom Penh to Touk Meas in Kampot province. But an infrastructure project that involves reconstructing a nation's entire railway system inevitably has winners and losers.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael

Speakers: Prak Phea, Cambodian norrie driver; Fiona Cochaud, charge d'affaires at the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh; Putu Kamayana, the Asian Development Bank country head; Wayne Hunt, CEO and president of Toll Global Logistics

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: There are currently two ways of getting around by rail in Cambodia. There is this way:

INTRO - TRAIN WHISTLE SOUNDING, TRAIN CLICKING ALONG TRACKS

Which is the sound of a train leaving Phnom Penh station last week.

And then there is this way:

SOUND OF NORRIE CLICKING ALONG TRACKS

They might sound a bit similar, but the chances are you have never travelled on the second one. It is known here as the flying carpet.

For 20 years the flying carpet - or norrie - has been a key way for rural Cambodians to travel between villages along the country's decrepit railways.

The flying carpet is also popular with tourists looking for something different.

A flying carpet is simply a bamboo bed on wheels, and with a small motor attached it zips along the buckled rails at about 35 kilometres an hour.

It takes just a minute to assemble a norrie, which is just as well since Cambodia's old rail system is a single line. So when two norries meet, convention has it that the driver with the lighter load dismantles his norrie to let the other pass.

But next year all of the norrie drivers will be out of business. Cambodia's railway is being overhauled after decades of war and neglect, and there will be no room for flying carpets.

Prak Phea has been a norrie driver for 16 years, riding a 25-kilometre length of track near Pursat town, which lies 200 kilometres northwest of Phnom Penh.

He tells me that he doesn't yet know what he will do for alternative employment, but whatever it is, it probably won't pay as well as this job, which nets him up to 50 dollars a week.

Just over half of the 142 million dollars this project is costing has come in the form of a loan from the Asian Development Bank, or ADB.

Most of the rest came from the Australian government and from Phnom Penh, which last year signed a concession deal with a private company to run the upgraded system for 30 years.

Putu Kamayana, the ADB's country head, says this public-private partnership will benefit Cambodia in more ways than simply improving the country's infrastructure.

KAMAYANA: That's a very big step and a very bold step by the government, but certainly by also improving the transport infrastructure it will improve ultimately Cambodia's competitiveness in the global economy and promote foreign direct investment into Cambodia.

CARMICHAEL: By next year the southern line of the upgraded rail system will connect Phnom Penh with the southern port of Sihanoukville. By 2013, the 400-kilometre-long northern line will connect the capital with Thailand.

Fiona Cochaud is the charge d'affaires at the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh. She says Cambodia will reap rewards in a number of areas.

FIONA COCHAUD: Well there are a lot of benefits for the railway. It's going to create jobs; it will lead to economic growth; it's going to help Cambodia with its exports by making access to the port more competitive. It's also an important part of Australia's support for broader regional economic integration and connectivity.

CARMICHAEL: When the government finally shut down Cambodia's battered rail network a few years ago, decades of conflict and neglect meant that trains were practically at a standstill.

Wayne Hunt is the CEO and president of Toll Global Logistics, whose parent company, Australian firm Toll Holdings, won the rail concession.

Hunt says matters are now much improved on the 110-kilometre long section of rail between Phnom Penh and the southern town of Touk Meas, which opened last week to freight traffic.

WAYNE HUNT: When we are fully operational it will be an average speed of 50 kilometres an hour. The railway prior to it closing down was actually running at 5 kilometres an hour. So as you can see we are bringing quite a lot of productivity back into the economy of Cambodia.

CARMICHAEL: In most of the world rail freight is cheaper than road freight, and Toll hopes that much of the freight currently going by road in Cambodia will switch to rail.

Whether a regular passenger service will resume is at this stage an open question.

But for years some have dreamed of a pan-Asian railway, and for just as long Cambodia's defunct railway has been the missing link.

It still is, but the resumption of commercial traffic last week on the first stretch of line marks the beginning of the realization of that dream.

Once this upgrade is completed, the final exercise will be to build a line between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam - something both governments say they will do.

And at that point the gap in the pan-Asian railway will be closed, and it will be possible for train buffs with plenty of time on their hands to get on a train in Singapore, and get off again in Scotland.

End of the line for Cambodia’s bamboo trains

Villagers ride on a 'norry' in Kompong Chhnang province, northwest of Phnom Penh. Cambodia is planning an ambitious overhail of its rail network. (Tang Chhin Sothy, AFP/Getty Images / January 17, 2010)

For decades the precarious bamboo platforms have ferried people and goods in the nation’s hinterlands. But increasingly there is little room, or need, for them.

April 27, 2010
By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Battambang, Cambodia

It rattles along at 20 miles an hour, swaying back and forth on uneven rails, the engine so loud it makes your teeth hurt. Then, rather unceremoniously, it runs out of gas and dies.

And you find yourself stranded in the middle of Cambodia on a handmade "norry" train, feeling a bit exposed on a 25-square-foot platform made of bamboo and scrap metal attached to wheels salvaged from old tanks.

Picture one of those hand-pump rail cars depicted in old Westerns, and you're close. It's powered (when it has gas) by a converted outboard engine. The brakes (when it has gas and you need brakes) are a wooden board pushed against the wheels. No seats.

All this bamboo and scrap metal give it a makeshift appearance, and appearances do not deceive. Pretty soon, driver Path Chanthorn starts pushing the disabled norry with hands that are missing a few fingers from a run-in with a water buffalo — "a strong cow," he mutters.

Another norry approaches from the opposite direction, every inch of its platform covered by a dozen people headed for a festival. With a single track to ride on, etiquette dictates that the norry with the lighter load be taken apart so the other can pass. So Chanthorn and his assistant quickly dismantle their vehicle and let the other one by, then put theirs back together again, all within minutes.

And you are on your way.

Now a government plan to upgrade the country's rail system may end up forever stranding the norry, an ingenious response to the decades of war, destruction and dire poverty that have afflicted Cambodia.

Under the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1970s, as the country descended into civil war and mass murder, 2 million people perished. And in leader Pol Pot's quest to reach "Year Zero," Cambodia also saw most of its roads destroyed, its trucks blown up, its locomotives charred.

By the early 1980s, as Cambodia started to emerge from the nightmare, people remembered the small vehicles used by rail workers in the 1960s to repair the tracks and started building their own. The norry, a name some say is derived from a mispronunciation of "lorry," was born.

The humble norry is a reminder of how much Cambodians lost, but it also speaks to their persevering spirit. All but left for dead under Pol Pot's genocidal regime, they defied the odds to rebuild, sometimes literally: Witness the land mine victims who picked up their lives by crafting homemade wooden limbs.

"It shows how ingenious people can be," says Ith Sorn, 55, who's been driving norries for three decades. "Cambodians came up with this when they had almost nothing."

The unique mode of transportation saw its heyday in the 1980s when other vehicles were scarce. "There were bombs and mines everywhere, roads were destroyed and rail cars a shambles," says Kot Sareurn, 50, a union leader for 23 norry drivers in Battambang, a picturesque provincial capital along the tranquil Sangker River. "Norries helped a lot of people survive, get to hospitals, get food."

Initially operators "rowed" the norries with poles, gondola-style, carrying loads of up to 40 people, eight cows or three tons of rice. After a few years, small gasoline engines were added.

Drivers said that at the peak, thousands of norries operated throughout Cambodia, charging villagers only a few cents for a ride but still making a decent living with so many people and possessions jammed aboard.

These days, the few hundred remaining norries are relegated to short distances in a few provinces, more an oddity for tourists than the lifeblood they once represented, as trucks, public buses and motorbikes fill the gap. They're still privately owned, but nowadays companies sometimes own several of them, splitting the profits with drivers.

Safety? Not a problem, Sorn says: "I've never had a bad accident. Only occasionally, if it's overloaded, we'll break down and some goats tumble off."

They've clung to life thanks to the tourists and Cambodia's catatonic rail system. The last train anyone saw around Battambang's Odombang station lumbered through more than a year ago. The norry drivers have since taken over the tiny station, sleeping in hammocks on the platform, littering its dirt floor with their cigarette wrappers.

But there's movement down the line. The government plans to revamp the nation's two modest state-owned rail lines — a 230-mile stretch from Phnom Penh to the border with Thailand completed by the French in 1942, and a 150-mile stretch from the capital to the southwestern Sihanoukville port finished with help from China and Germany in 1969. Government officials envision turning the system over to private operators by early 2012.

This would almost certainly see the go-cart-like norries muscled aside by "real" trains.

"Norries are dangerous, shabby-looking and won't last in the 21st high-tech century," says Touch Chankosal, an official with the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. "Real trains going at over 30 miles per hour would run right over them. The drivers' lives are worth more than preserving norries."

Union leader Sareurn has little nostalgia for the contraptions that have earned his keep for decades. "If the government provides compensation, we'll all stop the next day," he says.

Others aren't quite so sanguine. "I'm worried, but what can you do?" says Chanthorn, 37, who's been driving since he was 10. "The rails belong to the government. We're just borrowing them."

During the Khmer Rouge days, there were no norries, only endless walking by starving people, Sorn says in his house beside the tracks made of beams and tin. His wife, Dorn Mao, 50, shows where she was hacked with a machete by a Khmer Rouge fighter for taking a few bananas. "It's hard to think about," she says.

Recently, more foreigners have been riding his norry, Sorn says, including three with big bellies who initially balked, thinking it too flimsy to support them.

"They worried that the bamboo would break, but bamboo is very strong," he says. "If I can carry eight cows, I can certainly carry a few fat foreigners."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

New rail plans worry Cambodians [-More forced evictions are coming]

Saturday, October 31, 2009
Source: Al Jazeera

In some parts of rural Cambodia, public transport is virtually non-existent, so for years villagers have had their own innovative way of getting around - by what is known as a Bamboo Train, or locally, as a lorry.

Villagers rely on them to go to work, to the market, to travel to the hospital, and back home.

Now the government wants to introduce a modern rail system, but as Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports from Pursat in Cambodia, the locals wonder whether the new trains will be as reliable as what they are used to.

Hop on Cambodia’s (very) light rail

September 24. 2009
Stephen Kurczy
The National (United Arab Emirates)

The flight
Return flights from Abu Dhabi to Phnom Penh on Singapore Airlines (www.singaporeair.com) cost from US$815 (Dh2,995), including taxes
The ride Roundtrip journeys (about 20km) on the bamboo train cost between $6 (Dh22) and $10 (Dh37), depending on your bargaining skills

The guide
While technically illegal, most hotels and tour operators in Battambang still organise trips to the bamboo train lines. Gecko Trails offers guide services and rents motorbikes for $8 (Dh30) per day, for those who wish to travel on their own to the station, which is situated about four kilometres outside of town. Thy Racky, a private guide (00 855 17 829 450) is knowledgeable, and speaks English fluently

Their driver winds a rope tightly around the motor and pull-starts the engine. As they accelerate away, Soung and Vat reassemble our car. Soung climbs aboard the rear railing and wraps a fan belt over a motor gear – the other end of the belt is already looped around the axle through a hole in the bamboo platform. He pull-starts the engine and we’re off. The breeze cuts the humidity and clouds of multicoloured butterflies flutter past.

As we hurtle down Cambodia’s decrepit train tracks on a bamboo platform the size of a billiards table, another car rushes in our direction, crammed with 17 passengers returning from marshy rice fields after a day of labour. Their trouser legs are still wet.

Green rice fields stretch out on either side. This is public transportation in parts of Cambodia, and it has become one of the the biggest tourism draw in Battambang, a town a few hours south-west of the temples of Angkor Wat.

Decades of slow and unreliable train service prompted Cambodians to make their own use of the tracks and hundreds of illegal “bamboo trains” now run along the single-lane, 596km-line, that begins near the Thai border in north-west Cambodia, extends east through Battambang to Phnom Penh, then runs south to the coastal port of Sihanoukville.

“There’s only one in the whole world,” a Battambang tour guide, known as Tap Tin Tin says, while escorting a Dutch family of five along the bamboo railway. “You see it transporting tourists, but it’s very useful for the Cambodians to carry rice or bring a cow or pig to slaughter in town.”

In Battambang about 100 tourists ride the cars daily, and hotels and tour guides all advertise rides on the renegade railway. Soon, however, their voyages along Cambodia’s makeshift railroad will end.

An ongoing, five-year, US$148 million (Dh544m) railway project aims to reclaim Cambodia’s tracks from disrepair and connect them to Singapore. De-mining and emergency repair work began in early 2008, and new tracks are expected to go down in November, according to Nida Ouk, an official with the Asian Development Bank, the project’s primary donor. In July, an Australian company, Toll Group, signed a concession to manage Cambodia’s rails.

In addition to increasing freight traffic and quadrupling current train speeds, Ouk says that the project’s funders plan to enforce the ban on the illegal bamboo cars, citing safety concerns and promising to provide alternative skills training to those who operate them.

“You can imagine, it could cause a major traffic accident,” he says.

As we speed toward the opposing car, my 19-year-old driver, Soung Vy, and his co-conductor, Vat Vy, 16, sit calmly atop the platform’s rear railing. Each has a pierced ear – Vat also has nose, lip and tongue piercings. Soung lifts his leg off our five-horsepower engine and pushes his foot down on a piece of wood suspended above the wheels to stop us from running into the car loaded with rice farmers. Five people sit on our cart, compared to 17 on the opposing cart, so we are obligated to disassemble and allow the other to pass.

When opposing cars hold equal loads, drivers decide who disembarks with a game of rock, paper, scissors. We deboard. Soung and Vat grudgingly walk to either side of our platform. They easily pick it up and set it in the brush. Each then lifts a set of wheels, hoisting the axle like a barbell, and sets it aside.

On the other car, Duk Kun, 40, is waiting to go home after a long day planting rice seeds on his one-hectare plot of land. He wears a cowboy hat and smokes a cigarette. Because his field is 15km from the nearest paved road, he rides the bamboo train every day during planting and harvesting season. Without it, he says, he would walk two hours to work. Beside him sits 10-year-old Ho Makara, riding home after visiting relatives down the line.

I had wanted to ride a real train, but when I arrived at the stately old colonial station in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, I found the gates locked. The landmark building last filled its atrium corridors when a nightclub hosted a dance party there earlier this year. The afternoon I visited, a few squatters slept on the floor.

Ouk Ourk, an official with the Royal Railways of Cambodia, told me that passenger services stopped last year because of the poor state of the tracks. Freight trains derail occasionally, he said, and petrol cars have tipped and spilt.

“We were worried about derailment, about someone dying – we haven’t had this, but we wanted to prevent accidents,” he said. Behind his office at the Phnom Penh station sat dozens of abandoned freight cars and several abandoned passenger cars. Holes dotted the floors and ceiling, broken seats rested in piles, and mounds of human faeces were scattered on the floor, vestiges from the poor who now live in the cars. Freight trains leave for Battambang about once a week and eke along the tracks at 10 to 20km-per-hour, said Ouk Ourk, creeping at a pace that gives bamboo operators adequate time to get out of the way or attempt to outrun it.

Ouk Ourk said the only way civilians ride the tracks is on a bamboo cart, and the best place to do it is in Battambang. Five days later, I arrived at the main train station in Battambang, another decaying colonial building and reminder of Cambodia’s history as a protectorate from 1863 to 1954 of the French, who built these tracks and buildings in the 1930s. Once again, the doors were locked.

A dozen children, aged two to 12, sat on the station’s windowsills and slid their flip-flops along the floor in a rudimentary game of marbles. Cows grazed beside the rails. Two volleyball nets were strung on grassy patches between the tracks.

As I waited for a bamboo train to pick me up, my guide and translator, Thy Racky, 36, got a call from our driver saying police would not let him enter town. Operators are forbidden from entering inner-city stations, although we’d convinced our driver to attempt to sneak in.

Instead, a tourist’s trip along the rail starts about four kilometres outside Battambang town, at the end of a winding dirt road in O Dambong village. Bamboo platforms are stacked on the ground outside another abandoned train station. A young man sells bubble tea for $0.25 (Dh1) from a mobile cart out front.

There is no ticket counter. Taped to the back of the building’s door is a piece of paper listing the names of train operators who share business on a rotating schedule. Cambodians pay about 25 cents for a one-way ride while foreigners pay about $10 for a trip 10km up the line to O Sra Lav village and back.

One traveller, 60-year-old Vive Armstrong from New Zealand, boarded a bamboo train without hesitation. “It looks smoother than the roads,” she said, referring to Cambodia’s notoriously bumpy streets.

After we let the horde of day labourers pass, I am seated cross-legged with two other passengers as we thump over the warped tracks. An emaciated cow occasionally meanders over the tracks.

Looking down as we cross a river I see pieces of cement missing from the 80-year-old bridge. I clench my jaw as we jump gaps in the tracks that are six centimetres long. I ask my guide, Thy Racky, if anyone is ever injured. He says six tourists were hospitalised last year when their bamboo train hit a bump and flipped off its wheels.

Railway officials have long utilised similar carts, but without engines, to inspect the tracks. Civilians began using the carts in the early 1980s after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist regime that killed some 1.5 million Cambodians and left the country’s economy and infrastructure in disrepair.

Our bamboo train slows to a stop at O Sra Lav station, where I meet Pat Oun, 69. He owns a beverage shop catering to tourists, but he also says he built 200 engineless lorries before packing up his chisel and axe in 1983. Each took about four days’ labour, he says.

In those days, the operator pushed the cars forward with two long oars – like a gondolier. In 1992, according to local lore, a man named Mr Rit, now deceased, strapped an irrigation pump engine on the cart, creating the first motor-powered bamboo car.

“Everyone just thought a bamboo train would be very useful to transport things from here to there,” says Pat Oun. Today, a bamboo train sells for about $600 (Dh2,204), he says. The platform and engine each cost about $200 (Dh735), and the wheels, salvaged from the gears of old bulldozers and army tanks, cost about $180 (Dh660).

About 200 bamboo train operators work the tracks near Battambang, with hundreds more toward Phnom Penh and near the coast. Operators tell me that bamboo cars can travel the 338km distance from Battambang to Phnom Penh in 13 hours, several hours faster than the journey by passenger train before service was discontinued.

Back in Battambang town that night, while indulging in one of the famous fruit shakes at the White Rose restaurant, I meet Willem Bierens de Haan, a 25-year-old from the Netherlands. Earlier in the day, I saw him and his girlfriend whizz past me on a bamboo train, grinning wildly.

“We wanted to experience how the locals make use of the unused rails,” Willem says. “It’s like a roller coaster through the countryside.”

Cambodians Use Makeshift Trains Built With Bamboo

By VOA Khmer, Washington
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
06 February 2009

Battambang is a main hub to the capital, Phnom Penh, and has long been one of the country's leading rice-producing provinces. It is Cambodia's second largest city with a population of about one million people but trains are irregular, and they often travel at little more than walking pace.

At the Battambang train station abandoned train carriages lay idle, the so-called bamboo trains have become an unofficial part of Cambodia's transport network.

With an official train service departing just once a week, local people have come to rely heavily on the de facto train network. They have taken matters into their own hands by establishing a network of vehicles they call "noris" or "lorries" to get around in. This is bamboo train driver, Ngol Ngoun.

Ngo Ngoun: "It's very safe to travel on this railway here. Plus it's easy to carry crops, or tools, or whatever, back and forth to the rice fields. That's why people like it so much-- it brings them directly to their rice fields safely and easily."

The trains are constructed from bamboo and are built with tiny electric engines which allow the vehicles to reach top speeds of about 40 kilometres (25 miles) per hour. The villagers use any wood they can find including warped and broken rails which can make for a bumpy ride but that does not seem to worry the locals who are accustomed to travelling on the bamboo trains in large groups. Rice farmer, Teng Kann, says he regularly uses the train.

Teng Kann: "I take the train because it's cheaper than using the motobike for my business. Also, the noris comes and goes at night time, and when people get sick, they can go to hospital for less- if you hire a car it will cost you a lot more."

The low fares apply not only to local villagers but to young foreign tourists travelling on a budget. Matteo Keffer from Italy says it is "incredible to see how the (villagers) utilise the old (French) colonial infrastructure."

Matteo Keffer, Italian Tourist: "It's incredible to see how they utilize the old colonial infrastructure for their benefit and the farmers around here are really friendly. Battambang itself was a pleasant surprise."

Federica Fruhwirth, Italian Tourist: "Now let's hope we get home in one piece."

The official railways survived decades of civil war and sabotage by the Khmer Rouge but years without maintenance have taken their toll and the service is not without quirks. There is only one track - so if two trains meet, the train transporting the lightest load has to be taken off the rails. Yet the simple design of the vehicles means the trains can be easily dismantled. So for now local people say they will continue to rely on the bamboo railway even though Cambodia's rail authorities plan to rebuild the country's entire rail network by 2011.

Cambodia Public Transportation ... with private entrepreneurship

A Cambodian boy stands along a railway track in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Cambodians prepare to set up a "lorry", also known as a bamboo train, on a railway track in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Cambodians wait to alight a "nory", also known as a bamboo train, along a railway track in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Cambodians travel on a "nory", also known as a bamboo train, along a railway track in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Cambodians travel on a "lorry", also known as a bamboo train, along a railway track in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A Cambodian woman pushes her bicycle next to a railway line in Pursat province, about 200 km (124 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, February 17, 2008. Cambodia will launch on Monday a $73 million project that will see to the restoration and reconstruction of over 600 kilometres of railway track. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Battambang's bamboo train world's most eco-friendly ride

29-Jul-07
Liz Price
The Brunei Times

KUALA LUMPUR
WHEN I was asked if I wanted to ride on the bamboo train, I had no idea what was on offer. The picture that came to mind was of a cute toy train with carriages made out of bamboo, maybe similar to something you would find at a park or zoo to take tourists for a ride. But I knew there were no such parks in Cambodia.

I was in Battambang province in northwest Cambodia. I had spent the day visiting the killing caves of the Pol Pot regime. From my hotel in Battambang, I had hired a motorbike and driver for the day. This cost a mere US$6 ($9) for a 7 hour trip. It was towards the end of the day when the driver asked if I wanted to ride on the bamboo train.

We crossed a river on a narrow suspension bridge. I didn't realise until later that this was the upstream part of the Stung Sangker or Sangker River, which flows through the centre of Battambang. Soon after we came to a railway line.

When I was told this was the bamboo railway, I could see no sign of any train, and there were definitely no cute bamboo carriages. I got off the bike and walked in the rain to the station. There were quite a few people bustling around and lots of goods waiting to be transported somewhere. I wondered how long we would have to wait for the train to arrive. I knew that the train service in Cambodia is fairly primitive and is incredibly slow. Train travel is exceedingly cheap, but patience is required. Trains travel at an average speed of 20kph and mechanical problems can mean unscheduled stops.

We were on the main railway line from Phnom Penh to Poipet which is the border town to Thailand. The French built this single-track metre-gauge line in the 1920's. They used it to carry coffee and bananas to the city. The first tiny steam engines were replaced by more powerful steam locomotives. But during the Khmer Rouge regime the trains were destroyed. The tracks were spared but were overgrown by the jungle. It was only after the civil war that the locals cleared the rails and the line was back in operation again. The 274km journey from Battambang to Phnom Penh takes around 15 hours if there are no problems. The train runs up one day and down the next day and I wondered if today was the up or down day. Whilst I was still contemplating the speed of the train, the penny suddenly dropped. I realised that all this while I had been looking at the bamboo train without recognising it.

Instead of a train with carriages, the Battambang bamboo train is in fact a metal frame with bamboo slats that sits on two axles with wheels. It is used to transport people and goods up and down the railway. The bamboo slats form the base on which the passengers, goods and livestock sit. It can carry anything that will fit on it, even motorcycles. It is also used to transport the rice in the harvest season. The Cambodian name for the train is norry. It is an ingenious invention. After the days of the Khmer Rouge, the land mines were cleared from the tracks, and the local residents built dozens of these miniature trains.

It was interesting to watch the assembly of the contraption. Two young men appeared, carrying two ancient steel axles with cast-iron wheels at both ends. These were placed on the track - a perfect fit. Next, a metal frame with the bamboo slats is positioned atop the axles. The whole thing is about three feet wide and maybe eight feet long. The engine sits on top, linked to the wheels by a rubber drive wheel. The only braking system is to turn the engine off and coast to a stop.

The older trains don't have the metal frame. Instead there is a long semi-rigid bamboo mat. The axles fit into two steel forks on the underside of the mat. The mat sits atop the wheels, unsecured except by the steel forks.

Today the train is driven by a motorcycle or tractor engine. Gasoline is available at village crossings, sold in glass whiskey bottles. In the past men used poles to push it along, a bit like a dry land version of a punt on the River Thames! It runs about 10 km up and down the line, and costs 1000 riel ($0.40) between stations. As the regular train only goes up one day and down the next, there is no danger of collision. However if two bamboo trains meet, the lighter one is simply taken off the rails to allow the other to pass.

I was lucky as one train was being loaded when we arrived. Not long after we had been there, my driver told me to watch as the train was leaving. Before I really grasped what was happening, people jumped aboard and a few men started pushing it whilst running along behind. I found it quite comical as the train disappeared into the distance and the men were still running along pushing it. Obviously the engine hadn't kicked in. I don't know if they were just saving on fuel costs or if there was some problem with the engine. It reminded me of something from a silent Charlie Chaplin movie.

The old station building of French construction would have been quite elegant in its day. Nowadays it is used as a store for the train parts. The rain got heavier but I didn't mind as I had seen the Battambang bamboo train.

Cambodia's "bamboo horse" keeps the people on track

Residents ride on "norries" at Tbeng Khpos train station in Kompong Chhnang province some 50 kilometers (31 miles) north-west of Phnom Penh, 12 March 2007.(AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Wed Mar 28, 2007
by Suy Se

TBENG KHPOS, Cambodia (AFP) - Horn Tith's motto is: anytime, anywhere. Well, almost anywhere -- as long as there are train tracks along which he can drive his small, home-made "norry" train, one of many that ply Cambodia's battered rail system.

With the regular rail service in shambles, Cambodians for decades have been driving these bamboo horses to carry goods and people the length of the country.

"We can't wait for the trains, there is not enough service," said the 20-year-old amateur conductor as he hurried to put his norry together at this isolated train station, a faded yellow blockhouse some 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the capital Phnom Penh.

Two axles stripped from derelict military vehicles were laid on the tracks, and a bamboo platform set on top of them. A small gasoline engine was wedged into a hole cut out of the platform and tied to one of the axles with a rubber strap.

The entire assembly took only a couple of minutes and Horn Tith, who has been driving norries since he was 10 years old, called his half dozen passengers aboard.

"Even when people get sick, we can transport them anytime, even in the middle of the night -- quick, on-time service," he said.

Cambodia's rail system runs from the southwestern seaport of Sihanoukville to the capital, finally terminating hundreds of kilometres (miles) away on the northern border with Thailand.

But decades of war and neglect left vast stretches of track damaged, making train travel a slow and uncomfortable experience. What few trains remain only make the trips north or south from the capital once a week.

The roads in many parts of the country were no better, with rural thoroughfares often little more than crumbling tracks or muddy paths gouged through the rice fields.

Looking for an easier, more reliable form of mass transport, Cambodians began building norries in the 1980s.

Horn Tith admits that accidents were common in the chaos of those early years, but this unofficial form of public transport has evolved its own set of rules.

"There is only one track -- so if two norries meet, the one with the lighter load has to be taken off the rails so the other can pass," he said.

"If they are carrying the same weight load, the one that is nearer to the train station must return," he added.

-- Cheaper and safer than the roads --

Long Sokhon arrived in Tbeng Khpos hot and tired. The 50-year-old was travelling south with her daughter and husband to see family and thought it only natural that she take the norry.

"I wanted to have fun and see the view," she said.

More importantly, it kept her family off Cambodia's notoriously dangerous highways, which are the scene of daily carnage as drivers in vehicles big and small hurtle along the asphalt with little regard for their own mortality.

"Taking the norry is much safer (because) you are driving on one-way road," she said.

Also making the norry attractive for impoverished rural Cambodians is the fact that a single fare can cost as little as a few US cents, Horn Tith added.

"Villagers like to ride norries," he said.

But the government has been trying its best to stop the practice.

The government two years ago banned norries, saying that they were driving down train ridership, officials said.

"We have never officially allowed norries to operate on the railroads ... it is illegal," said Uk Chan, a secretary of state at the transport ministry who oversees Cambodia's railways.

Acknowledging that "our railroads have been poor since the war," Uk Chan said 73 million dollars has been earmarked to restore the rail system and to make rail travel faster.

"People will use the trains again," he said, adding however that the rehabilitation, which starts in 2008, could take three years.

Back in Tbeng Khpos, stationmaster Kan Khorn admitted that in reality, the government's ban against norries only lasted a couple of months.

"Now we cannot ban norries from running because the villagers need the transportation, so we just close our eyes and let them go," he said.

Political Cartoon: Hun Xen Express Norry

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Traveling on the Moon Express Norry (Lorry)