Michael Batson

On a recent trip to Kampot I got talking one day at lunch to an expat retired railway engineer. He was telling me about the train service to Kampot and how this was worth doing once. “If you do it twice it’s probably a reminder you should have only done it once” he quipped. He said the service was a railcar that hailed originally from Mexico. A railcar is a self-powered carriage as opposed to carriages pulled by a separate engine, like a locomotive. His story piqued my interest as I’d often thought of taking the train, something I’ve never done in Cambodia. I’ve taken trains before in Southeast Asia; in Thailand a few times, Indonesia, and in Vietnam, but never in the Kingdom of Wonder.

My frequent trips to Kampot were only by road; either by bus or sometimes I’d ride my motorbike. I enjoy riding, but the bus though it’s a relatively short trip, can still be a chore. Road travel is slow; four hours from Phnom Penh to Kampot though it’s barely 150kms distance (to be fair one trip only took three hours). Vehicles are forced to travel at the pace of the slowest road users, often overloaded motorbikes performing some freight function, or carrying five people, or drivers who just seem to crawl along at a snail’s pace for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Finally, I bit the bullet and decided to buy a train ticket. I looked online. There were timetables, prices, and seating configurations. I looked for the railcar. The retired engineer told me this had a one-one configuration, one seat either side of the aisle: great big ones he said like armchairs. I thought that sounded just what I was after – comfort and no immediate neighbour. Options though for buying online were limited so wanting to take another look inside Phnom Penh’s Art Deco railway station I opted to go down and buy a ticket old school, in-person, and over-the-counter.

And I’m glad I did. The young woman at the ticket office was really helpful. She explained everything in detail though sadly it seemed, no railcar. There were bench seats, two people to each. The seats were arranged in a back-front configuration; one facing back and the other facing to the front, so four people in theory sat in each “pod”. In practice though this turned out to be nigh on impossible, unless you were slime and Khmer. Big European frames were never going to fit like that. the price of one-way ticket to Kampot was just USD9 so cheaper than the bus (USD12 for a ride that was expected to take about four hours. I love the way they say “about” because that invariably means it’s nowhere near that and usually more.

The train to Kampot leaves Phnom Penh railway station at 7:30am. The woman at the ticket counter advised me to be at the station at 7:00am. That's earlu but not as much so as a bus leaving for Ho Chi MInh City at 5am. I like Phnom Penh railway station: it’s functional, well designed, looks good, and is a remaining piece of architectural history in a city determined on demolishing its built heritage. The railway station was completed in finally 1932 taking over a year to build. Work was repeatedly hampered by the rains. then, nothing. After years of neglect the station was refurbished in 2010 another 68 years. in between there was colonialism, war, independience, civil war, genocide, and most other things you could imagine. train stations and certain infrastructure were never a priority in country where most poeple struggle to survive.

Scheduled passenger train services between Phnom Penh and the port city of Sihanoukville (Kompong Som) resumed in May 2016 after having been suspended for 14 years. The train service to Batdambang resumed in 2021. This line, the Northern Line, one of only two lines eventually is intended to connect to Poipet on the border with Thailand. Eventually it’s hoped that trains will run all the way from Bangkok to Phnom Pen and eventually to Ho Chi Minh City but with interruptions by border conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand and a lack of investment, strategy, not to mention enthusiasm, now seems a long way off. Rail connections are supposed to be all part of the Southern Economic Corridor: connecting Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar, but so far work has only been done on road transport links and with everything going on in Myanmar, that’s not worked out either.

Phnom Penh’s railway station has played a part in the country’s turbulent political history too. It played a part in Cambodia’s revolutionary history when for three days in September 1960 leaders of the Kampuchean People’s Revolutionary Party, the forerunner of what is today the Cambodia People’s Party that has run Cambodia since 1979, held a secret congress at the station. From that meeting the 21 leaders (14 delegates represented the rural faction, and seven represented the urban faction) renamed the party the Workers Party of Kampuchea which later became the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and which took over Cambodia in 1975 as the Khmer Rouge (actually Khmers Rouges), a moniker given it by its then adversary Prince Sihanouk. The first important meeting of the Khmer Rouge leadership was held at the railway station in April 1975, following the fall of Phnom Penh at which the decision to evacuate the cities was taken, the first major action of Khmer Rouge rule.

There is a photo taken of the Khmer Rouge politburo taken in a railway carriage about that time which has featured in books about Cambodia’s history written by foreign scholars: either Ben Kiernan or David Cahndler, or both. The politburo is seated in ranking order. Pol Pot (front left), Communist Party of Kampuchea Secretary and Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea (DK); Noun Chea (behind Pol Pot), Deputy Secretary of the CPK and DK President of the People’s Representative Assembly; Vorn Vet (front right), Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Economy; Chhit Choeun aka Ta Mok (behind Vorn Vet), Chief of the General Staff. Vorn Vet (born Sok Thuok) was later murdered by those seated around him in the photo after he apparently led an unsuccessful coup d'état against Pol Pot’s leadership just prior to the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea.

Phnom Penh’s railway station has fallen victim to commercialism. Though the building is thankfully intact, a rather gross contemporary addition has been adjoined to the structure defacing its wonderful façade. There’s the signature of the owner, Royal Group; advertising hoardings for Cellcard, and I suppose less intrusive and more functionally, a Coffee Hub shop. Should you see the façade in bright sunshine, the off-white with navy blue paintjob does do it proud. Thankfully the view at the back has remained unscathed. When you arrive at the station for the train to Kampot, an official ushers you around to the back of the building, to the tracks. A railway carriage serves as a café, but though it seemed open and staffed wasn’t selling anything at 6:30am.

Train services run north on the so-called Eastern Line to Batdambang (pronounced Bat-dam-bong), which is still Cambodia’s second largest city though like most of Cambodia has a rather rural feel to it. The town is famous of its own railway; the bamboo train, a small motorized bamboo platform that takes people along old railway tracks locals use it for transport while tourists turn up for a thrill and a photo opportunity, and probably just get in the way of locals going about their business, or trying to.

Most of Cambodia’s rail network dates from the colonial period. Currently, the country has a total of 612kms of narrow gauge (1,000mm) track. This reduces permissible speeds, and can make for a rocky ride with carriages swaying from said-to-side. It’s also noisy. The French built the country’s first rail line (just 600mm gauge) in the 1890s connecting Siem Reap with Phnom Krom, a temple about 12kms southwest of Siem Reap town where Phnom (meaning mountain) Krom affords views of the Great Lake. Aside from a day out for the colonialists the railway was most likely used to take stone from the now-defunct quarries on Phnom Krom. The French built the line from Phnom Penh to Poipet beginning in the 1930s but work on the final section from Sisophon to the Thai border was only completed in 1942. Trains from Bangkok to Cambodia were suspended when the French Indochinese Government regained sovereignty over Batdambang and Sisophon suspended from Thailand in December 1946, as Thailand was seen as a supporter of Khmer Issarak (Free Khmer' or 'Independent Khmer') an anti-French and anti-colonial independence movement.

In 1955 Australia donated rolling stock, described as "railway wagons of various types", to use in Cambodia. In the 1960s France, West Germany and Britian supported the construction of the Southern Line, which runs from Phnom Penh through Kompong Speu, Takeo, and Kampot provinces to Kompong Som (these days Sihanoukville) on the southern coast to cut down the reliance on Saigon Port and Khlong Toei in Bangkok. In 1960 Australia provided more rolling stock (four third-class carriages) under the Colombo Plan. The came war and all rail operations ceased. In the 1980s rail services in Cambodia resumed but were often interrupted by guerilla activities.

In July 1994, Khmer Rouge guerrillas led by Chhouk Rin, a Cambodian guerrilla commander, convicted murderer, and former deputy to the Khmer Rouge military head Ta Mok ambushed a passenger train in Kampot province. The attack made headlines as the train was carrying some foreign backpackers who were kidnapped and held to ransom but were murdered three months later at Phnom Voar, the Khmer Rouge base on the border of Kampot Province, when government negotiations for their release failed. At least 13 Cambodians were also killed in the initial ambush. Chhouk Rin was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Khmer Rouge commander who ordered the attack, and it’s claimed the killings, Sam Bith, was also later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in ordering the killings. He was only found after an article published in a Thai newspaper reported him to be living in luxurious surroundings in Pailin, in Cambodia’s west, near the Thai border surrounded by his Khmer Rouge buddies.

Rail travel must have been perilous back then and a real eye-opener. I once stayed in a guesthouse owned by a Frenchman in Phnom Penh back in the 2010s, a beautiful old colonial villa near Wat Botum. He was a fan of Paris Saint-Germain given the football colours he had displayed. He also had old photographs hanging on the walls, many of them historical. I was taken by the one with him in his younger years standing atop a railway carriage in battle fatigues surrounded by Khmers also in uniform and many carrying weapons. I’m unsure of the photo’s vintage possibly pre-independence but then again, maybe even later.

By the 2000s trains between Phnom Penh and Battambang were running just once a week due to lack of funds and poor track maintenance. The tracks were so dilapidated that derailing of trains was a common feature of rail travel in Cambodia. In 2009 train services to Batdambang were suspended altogether. When I arrived back in Cambodia for another stay in 2011, Toll Holdings of Australia (but these days Japanese-owned) had begun work on the reconstruction of Cambodia’s ailing rail network with help from the Australian government (through AusAID) and the Asian Development Bank who were funding the project.

The idea was to have a reliable rail line to Thailand operating for the first time in over 60 years. They were also going to rehabilitate the Southern Line to Sihanoukville via Kampot to help with freight distribution from Cambodia’s only deepwater port: principally containers to relieve congestion on the struggling highway, the two-lane National Route Four, but other necessities like fuel to Phnom Penh. The only other route for these meant continued reliance on Saigon Port, and smaller vessels plying the Mekong River. The project however was blighted with delays and sparked controversy with the forced evictions of families living along the rail routes, plus contractor in-fighting, and cost overruns.

By March 2012, Toll suspended its involvement in the railway project and in 2014 sold its 55% stake to the Royal Group, now renamed Royal Railway Cambodia. The line between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville opened to travellers on 9 April 2016, after having been suspended for 14 years. In 2018 operations began again on the line to Batdambang and onto Poipet. However, China has funded a new highway, a toll road to Sihanoukville so it’s debatable how much freight now travels by rail on the 12 daily scheduled services. The road form Phnom Penh to Sisophon has also been upgraded to a dual-carriageway, also paid for with loans from China. Plans on future rail links from Phnom Penh to Bavet at the main border crossing to Vietnam have not yet eventuated. A rail service to the old international airport at Pochentong has now been suspended as the airport has moved south to Techno where there’s a new road but no rail link.

The train to Batdambang leaves at 6:40am and to Sihanoukville at 7am. The seat number on your ticket does not apply and I was told to sit anywhere. The carriage was not full and most of the other passengers like me were foreigners. There’s was a toilet in the carriage I was in but seemingly not in all carriages as passengers kept coming in to use the one where I was. Air-conditioning units had been retrofitted into the carriages whose vintage and origins were hard to determine. There were frequent stops as we made our way out of town parallel to Russian Boulevard the main route to the old airport and to the main coastal roads: routes three and four. All the rail crossings are manually operated with a uniformed official complete with flag and whistle lowering and raising all the barriers all the way to Kampot.

Urban rail lines are often where the dispossessed live in poor countries. It’s marginal land often occupied by squatters with no official land title as they cannot afford such things. This is the case in many countries and it is the case here. The train affords you a view of lives in Phnom Penh most tourists wouldn’t otherwise see. You get a ringside view of life sometimes right into people’s houses or what passes for these, often shacks. At one point I saw someone asleep (I assume that was the case) in a hammock hung from a brick wall.

There were many stops, planned and otherwise. Sometimes these were at a side track to let another train pass as the line to Kampot is single all the way. A long train with fuel tankers passed by at one point. The points aren’t automatic so the guard has to jump down and operate these manually, and then put these back on the same setting at the other end. Takeo was the first station we stopped at, at least one with buildings. Others tops were in open countryside. I wondered how communicating that works. Do you stand by the tracks and wave your arms about until the driver pulls up? At Takeo people got off and others got on. There was a line of stalls selling food. No sellers got on board and there appeared no food for sale on board throughout the trip.

After about two hours the temperature inside rose to produce sweat: of the air-conditioning units that were turned on, one didn’t seem to work and the other couldn’t manage. Eventually the woman attendant turned on a third and bingo, cool air. For parts of the trip the railway runs near to the main road though for much of the trip the train is out in the countryside with no main roads in sight. It was burning season; farmers set fire to the rice paddies to prepare for the next crop. It leads to awful air quality. The Thais blame Cambodia for polluting Thailand with smoke from burnings but the Thais do exactly the same. In Chaing Mai some people, those that can afford to, leave town for three months sometimes just to get away from the choking smog. Air quality in Phnom Penh is reduced to that of Dacca and New Delhi. Much of the countryside was blackened with the practice and in some cases, still smoking.

The station houses are all the same vintage: colonial. At Kep (or Kipe) it’s rather grand for a very small town but Kep is where French colonials used to holiday in grand villas many having fallen to ruination now. The French called it “Kep-sur-Mer” by some and “Saint Tropez of South-East Asia” or the “Cambodian Riviera” by others. The journey by rail actually seems greater in distance than that by road. There are distance markers alongside the tracks setting out each kilometre from Phnom Penh. Even the trip from Kep to Kampot seems to take longer than by road. At one point the train passes a huge complex of empty buildings. These are common place in Phnom Penh were entire apartment blocks new and not-so-new are for rent, others are just completed, fenced off and left empty. It seems to have caught on here too on the coast.

Kampot station is the busiest on the line from Phnom Penh. A lot of people get off here and more get on for the last leg to Sihanoukville, now a Chinese gambling haven called Macau Two. If you want to go to Sihanoukville from Kampot, and I don’t know why any tourists would but Cambodians go in some cases for work though the Chinese have largely cornered that too, then train is probably the best option as the coast road is in an abysmal state. The most bothersome part of the trip were the children in tourist family who couldn’t sit still, despite mountains of junk food, flavoured drinks, and multiple electrical devises, their combined attention spans lasted mere minutes. Of the parents, difficult to say, but they were very hands off. And as for the advice of the railway engineer, I don’t think that travel by train to Kampot is that bad. I’d probably do it again.