Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt railway line
| Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Tháp Chàm train station
In the foreground, the exit onto the Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt railway line, which is here with parked vehicles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 84 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt railway was an 84-kilometer-long meter-gauge railway in Vietnam that connected the city of Da Lat with the country's north-south railway . A leftover piece is used in tourist traffic.
history
Paul Doumer (1857–1932), Governor General of French Indochina since 1897 and later French President , presented in 1898 an overall concept for a railway network for the colony . It also included connections from a north-south railway in a westerly direction, targeting Laos and Cambodia . The Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt line was built as the state railway of the French colony of Indochina between 1908 and 1932 in three successive sections. The first, from Tháp Chàm to Tân Mỹ, went into operation in 1913, the second from there to Sông Pha in 1919. The mountain route from Sông Pha to Đà Lạt did not follow until 1932. The long construction period can be explained by the difficult terrain . The line had to be built in three sections as a rack railway and five tunnels were required. The adhesion stretches showed gradients of up to 25 ‰. Swedish engineers who had experience in building such systems were hired to build the steep sections . In the section from Sông Pha to Eo Gio (Bellevue), a distance of only ten kilometers, gradients of up to 120 ‰ had to be overcome. Here the route has its first rack section . It was not passable until 1928. The route from Eo Gio to Đơn Dương (Dran), which was again relatively flat, was completed in 1929. This was followed by the next steep section from Đơn Dương to Tram Hanh (Arbre Broyé) with a gradient of 115 ‰, which had to be built as a rack railway, by 1930. Three tunnels were required between Tram Hanh and Da Tho (Le Bosquet) and the third section with a rack followed between Da Tho and Trại Mát. Here the route has a gradient of 60 ‰. In total, the route had 34 km of racks. From Trại Mát it continued as an adhesion railway to Đà Lạt, where the inaugural train arrived on December 8, 1932. With a total length of 84 km, the route overcame an altitude difference of around 1400 m over a length of 43 km. The cost of the route was 200 million French francs .
The reception building of the Đà Lạt station from 1938 is remarkable. It was designed by the French architects Moncet and Reveron in the form of Art Deco . The station of Trouville-Deauville is named as a model , but this is more due to the three gables than to the architectural style. The gables of the reception building in Đà Lạt cite an architectural feature of the village community houses in the central Vietnamese highlands. The extraordinary building is now a cultural monument .
business
The gear steam locomotives of the type HG 4/4 - a total of nine pieces - were 1923-1930 by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) in Winterthur related. In 1904 it was considered the path to electrify , there were given around the requirements to an appropriately sized hydropower plant to build. In the following years there were repeated considerations, but they were never implemented.
After four of the HG 4/4 had been destroyed in the Second World War , the Chemins de Fer Indochinois (CFI) were able to acquire four HG 3/4 steam locomotives from the Swiss Brig-Furka-Disentis Railway (BFD), also from SLM, in 1947 , later: Furka-Oberalp-Bahn (FO), buy because the BFD had electrified its lines shortly before. They were given the numbers 31-201 to 31-204. The wrecks of these vehicles were bought in 1990 by the Furka Mountain Line Steam Railway (DFB), which was able to recondition two of the locomotives for operation. They are now used there in scheduled traffic . Two of the original HG 4/4 (704 and 708) and parts of a third locomotive were also returned. The HG 4/4 704 was completely refurbished in 12 years and has been in the DFB's planned operation since June 2019. The 708 is expected to go into operation at the DFB in 2021.
During the Vietnam War , operations were stopped in 1968 after the Viet Kong attacked the line. After the victory of North Vietnam in 1975, the railway infrastructure was dismantled in order to repair the Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City railway line .
In the 1990s, the 7 km long section between Đà Lạt and Trại Mát was rebuilt as a tourist attraction. Trains run here under the name "Dalat Plateau Rail Road". A complete reconstruction of the line was considered. November 2019: The authorities of Lam Dong province are planning to rebuild the 84 km long railway connection between Thap Cham and the city of Da Lat on the original route. A budget of approximately $ 340 million will be made available.
literature
- Gucci: Dalat - Song Pha Cog Railway Map and Dalat - Song Pha Vertical Map .
- Frédéric Hulot: Les chemins de fer de la France d'outre-mer . Vol. 1: l'Indochine, le Yunnan. La Regordane 1990.
- Nguyễn Tấn Dũng: Ratifying the Readjusted General Planning of Da Lat City, Lam Dong Province, and its Adjacent Areas to 2020 . AsianLII. May 27, 2002. Retrieved June 22, 2010.
- Mekong Express Maps . Rick Stauffer. April 17, 2007. Retrieved July 28, 2010.
Web links
- Viet Nam Air Force Model Aircraft of Minnesota: A Brief History of Dalat Railroad .
- A Brief History of Dalat Railroad
- Mekong Express Vietnam Photo Album: Da Lat Cog Railway
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information from Hulot, pp. 83, 89, 90 and Gucci.
- ↑ Amaury Lorin: "La civilization suit la locomotive": le credo ferroviaire de Paul Doumer, governor général de l'Indochine (1897-1902) . In: Revue d'histoire des chemins de fer 35 (2006), pp. 41–54.
- ↑ Nguyen Dat: Coming around the mountain ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Vietnam Investment Review v. August 11, 2008.
- ↑ a b c d Hulot, p. 90.
- ↑ a b Hulot, p. 91.
- ↑ Samantha Coomber: Paradise by the Dashboard Light . In: Air Canada enRoute v. January 1, 2008.
- ↑ Minh Thu: Little Paris charms visitors ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. . In: Asia News Network v. February 22, 2009; John Colet and Joshua Eliot: Vietnam handbook = Footprint Travel Guides. 2002. ISBN 1-903471-31-1
- ↑ NN: VHX Restoration .
- ↑ Proposed Loan and Administration of Loan from Agence Française de Développement: Yen Vien – Lao Cai Railway Upgrading Project ( Memento of the original dated June 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. . November 2006.
- ↑ Vietnam News Agency: Chugging down history lane ( memento of the original from January 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Vietnam News Agency: 1928 Thap Cham-Da Lat Railway returns v. October 7, 2007.
