Cambodia reopens railway line to Thailand after 45 years

NewsBharati    06-Jul-2018
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Phnom Penh, July 6: Cambodia has reopened the railway line to Thailand after a gap of forty five years with the railway running between capital Phnom Penh to Thailand border. Cambodia’s Transport Minister Sun Chanthol expressed joy saying this as “historic day for our nation”.

According to agencies, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has advanced US $ 13 million in 2009 to reconstruct the missing railway link. With its completion, the travel time between the two nations has been reduced considerably boosting the trade opportunities.

With the completion of the track, travel time is cut and new commercial opportunities develop. Built by the French during the colonial era, most of the country’s railways were damaged by conflict.

But Cambodia and Thailand still have to sign in an agreement on trains crossing the borers but the Minister said that the two countries hoped to strike the deal very soon.

Cambodia has more than 600 km of train track extending from its northern border with Thailand down to the southern coast.

Much of Cambodia’s railways – built by the French during their colonial occupation – were damaged by civil war during 1968-1975 and the Cambodian-Vietnamese war of 1978-1979.

A 48-kilometre portion of the railway near the border town of Poipet was destroyed by war in 1973.

The rest of link to Phnom Penh had been suspended for more than a decade due to the poor condition of the track.