Saigon – Mỹ Tho railway line
| Saigon – Mỹ Tho | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Locomotive No. 5 (1905)
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| Route length: | 70 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The northern section of the Saigon – Mỹ Tho railway line ( Saigon - Cholon ) was the first railway line in what was then French Indochina and in what is now Vietnam .
history
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On December 11, 1879, a group of investors was granted the concession to build a railway line from Saigon to Cholon. It was constituted as the Société Générale des Tramways à Vapeur de Cochinchine (SGTVC). The line was built in meter gauge, was five kilometers long and was opened on December 27, 1881.
As early as November 12, 1880, the government of French Indochina awarded the contract to another entrepreneur to extend the route to Mỹ Tho on the Mekong . After rapid construction progress, the line was put into operation on July 20, 1885, although its longest bridge over the Grand Vaïco (550 m) was not yet completed. A ferry was temporarily used here. On July 15, 1888, the two companies merged and the Saigon – Mỹ Tho railway was operated under a single direction.
Because it was built from an overland tram, the railway infrastructure and the permissible profile for railway vehicles on the route were limited, even when it was later connected to the rest of the colony's network in Saigon . From 1936 rail buses from Renault were used here. During this time, ten pairs of trains traveled the route every day. There were mixed trains and "express trains", the latter exclusively with passenger transport.
In 1958 the line was closed for economic reasons.
literature
- Frédéric Hulot: Les chemins de fer de la France d'outre-mer 1: L'Indochine - Le Yunnan . Saint-Laurent-du-Var 1990. ISBN 2-906984-05-1 .