Mandalay – Lashio railway line

Mandalay-Lashio
Goteik Viaduct
Route length:	188 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Maximum slope :	40  ‰
Minimum radius :	106 m
390.50 Mandalay Central 389.00 Shan Zu 382.75 Myo Haung Rangoon 385.25 Thoe Gyan Thye Zay 392.75 Tonbo siding quarry Dat Taw Chaung 396.25 Sedaw siding quarry Hairpin No. 1 Hairpin bend No. 2 Hairpin No. 3 400.25 Sa Tu Ta Lun Hto 405.00 Zibingyi 411.00 Thondaung 415.00 Anisakan 422.50 Maymo 427.75 Pwe Kaul 433.50 Wetwun 438.25 Sinlanzu 444.00 Hsum Hsai 456.00 Nawnghkio 463.00 Goteik Viaduct Goteik Viaduct 689 m 472.25 Nawngpeng Gokteik 482.00 Sakantha 490.00 Kyaukme 496.00 Loi kaw 504.00 Taw Gyi 509.50 Hsipaw 521.00 Ta Hpa Le 529.25 Se-tight 537.25 Mansam Falls 543.00 Man Pwe 545.25 Thi Ri Shan Hkai 547.75 Namyao to Namtu 560.75 Lashio

The Mandalay – Lashio railway is a 188 km long railway line in Myanmar that runs from Mandalay northeast through the Shawn Hills to Lashio near the border with China . The meter-gauge route is operated with diesel locomotives . A well-known structure on the route is the Goteik Viaduct .

history

The line was built by the Burma Railway Company between 1898 and 1905 . The line was the only railway in Burma to be built with 75 lbs of rails (about a weight of 31 kg / m) of rails, while even the existing main lines were only equipped with 60 lbs of rails (about 25 kg / m). The permissible axle load was 10 t.

An extension to Kunlong on the border with China was not implemented because the terrain was too difficult for the railway to be built. On the Chinese side, the connection with the Yunnan – Burma railway would have been continued, construction of which began in 1941, but had to be discontinued after a short time for several reasons. If both lines had been built, a continuous rail link from Europe via India to China would have been created together with the Baghdad Railway .

The Mandalay – Lashio railway was used during the Second World War to replenish the Chinese in the fight against the Japanese . The railway, together with the Burma Road, was supposed to bring goods from the United States via Rangoon to the Chinese border under the Lending and Lease Act . The transport capacity of both traffic routes was completely inadequate, so that huge material stores were formed in Rangoon and Lashio at the end of the route. These were mainly trucks, road construction materials, spare parts and maintenance equipment for the Burma Road, and material for the construction of the Yunnan – Burma Railway. Some of the material fell into the hands of the Japanese when they took Lashio.

Route description

Railway stations in Mandalay

Switchbacks at Sedaw

Lines with turning loops at the Goteik Viaduct

From the main train station Mandalay Central, the trains first follow the route in the south towards Rangoon. After five kilometers, the Myo Haung station is reached, where the railway line to Lashio begins. It branches off to the left from the main route and leaves the Mandalay agglomeration in a south-easterly direction. 20 km the route Sedaw where the route to reach mountain railway is up and Thondaung with four switchbacks wins 300 meters. The slope in this section of the route is 40 ‰, although this is not compensated in the bends with a 106 m radius, so that a route resistance of 46.7 ‰ is effective. After more than 50 km from Mandalay, the spa town of Pyin U Lwin , better known under the English name Maymyo, is reached . This is where the colonial rulers from Mandalay traveled when they wanted to escape the heat of the city.

Another 64 km to the northeast, the railway meets the most difficult obstacle in the route, the deeply cut Gokteik Gorge. It is crossed with the 689 m long and 97 m high Goteik Viaduct in the east of Nawnghkio. The bridge was built by the American Pennsylvania Steel Company and when it opened in 1900 was the largest scaffold pier viaduct in the world. In order for the route to reach the bridge, it must first make it down into the gorge with two turning loops and then climb out of the gorge again at the eastern end with three turning loops. The difference in height to be overcome is about 160 m both times.

The route continues over the market towns of Gokteik and Hsipaw towards Lashio. It follows the valley of the Myitnge and Nam Yao rivers, past the Mansam waterfall. The Burma Mines Railway branches off at Namyao, the last train station before Lashio . This railway with a track width of 610 mm was used to remove mining products from the lead and silver mines near Namtu and to supply coal for the smelting furnaces.

business

Class N mallet locomotive

Garratt locomotive EC5 of the Uganda Railway , which was identical to class GD

See also : Articulated locomotives of the Burma Railway

Due to its steep gradients, the line required particularly powerful locomotives that could cope with the narrow curves of the line. Because of the low axle load, almost only articulated locomotives came into question. Initially there were seven Fairlie class H locomotives with two three-axle engines built by the Vulcan Foundary between 1901 and 1906 .

After the First World War, in addition of the were North British Locomotive Company built (NBL) Mallet locomotives of class N with a Tender used. Although these had more powerful boilers, they were at a disadvantage because of the additional 36 t tender that had to be carried. They could move 145 tons of trains.

The increasing volume of traffic called for more powerful locomotives. Therefore, in 1924 Beyer-Peacock ordered the world's first quadruple-coupled Garatt locomotive . Compared to the mallet locomotives, they had a pulling force that was one third higher than the mallet locomotives with the same total weight, and could thus move 210 t trains with lower fuel consumption. The two test locomotives were assigned to classes GA I and GA II, whereby the GA II was one of the few composite steam locomotives built as Garratt . The latter showed no operational advantages, so that the four series locomotives of class GA III were delivered similar to the GA I. Class GA IV were replicas made by Krupp in Germany .

With the outbreak of the Second World War, even more goods had to be transported, with which the British War Department made further series available up to the large machines of the GD class, which were copied as the GE class after the war.

Today, two passenger trains pulled by Chinese diesel locomotives of the CKD7B series ( axle formula Bo'Bo'Bo ') run on the route every day .

Web links

Commons : Railway line Mandalay Lashio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Burma’s Railway System. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Pp. 1, 7 , archived from the original on August 29, 2016 ; accessed on August 29, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ ^{a b} A.E. Durrant: Garratt locomotives of the world: Translated and edited by Wolfgang Stoffels . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-0348-6523-4 , pp. 52–54 ( google.com [accessed August 30, 2016]).
3. ↑ United States Army in World War 2: China-Burma-India Theater, Stilwell's Command Problems . Government Printing Office, October 1, 2000 ( google.com [accessed August 29, 2016]).
4. ^ Mountain Train to Lashio. In: Flickr. Retrieved September 1, 2016 .