History of the Railway in Vietnam
The history of the railways in Vietnam was initially shaped by the colonial policy of the French Republic in French Indochina , and later by the decades-long wars from which Vietnam suffered.
Beginnings
First railways
The beginnings of the railroad in Vietnam were rather shaped by regional interests:
- The Saigon – Mỹ Tho railway line , the first in the country - its first section was opened on December 27, 1881 - served to develop the densely populated Mekong Delta south of Saigon . It was designed as a steam tram . Leading the way she was with regard to the track : The used herein meter gauge should be (and neighboring Indochina Thailand ) prevail as the standard.
- In contrast, the beginning of the railway age in the north of the country was initiated by military interests. France tried to establish a zone of influence in the southern provinces of the Chinese Empire and to prevent attacks from there on its own colony . A suitably efficient transport connection was required for this. In sections, a railway line was driven from Hanoi to the Chinese border, the predecessor of the Hanoi – Đồng Đăng railway . Since it was a military railway and the French company Decauville , one of the leading manufacturers of light rail material in the 600 mm gauge, was doing correspondingly successful lobbying work in Paris, the decision was made in favor of a railway in this gauge and Decauville was awarded the contract for the material deliveries . In 1894, this field railway, which was a little over 100 km long, reached the Chinese border.
The Doumer plan
The French government approved the construction of the Yunnan Railway relatively quickly because the railway was supporting its expansion policy with a thrust towards China. She gave herself under the illusion that the line would be economically viable and could therefore largely be built with private capital, because the later Yunnan Railway reflected the historically grown economic relationships that linked the southern Chinese province of Yunnan and Indochina . A banking consortium came together for the project. The sponsorship of the railway project in the hands of a consortium organized under private law served to camouflage the imperialist aspect of the project - above all from the rival colonial power of Great Britain . The consortium consisted entirely of French companies. After the first cost estimates were available, the two major banks Crédit Lyonnais and Banque des Paris et des Pays-Bas (Paribas) withdrew. So the financial side of the project was precarious.
The then Governor General of French Indochina, Paul Doumer (1857–1932), later French President , tried to embed the project in the overall concept of a railway network for the colony and thus to save it, which was also successful. However, this only at the price that the state ultimately took on the economic risk: The section of the line in Tonkin had to be built as a state railway, which was leased to the consortium. The section in China was built as a private railway. This was only possible through steadily increasing government grants, which were formally disguised as loans and ultimately only partially repaid from operating profits. The legal side of railway construction had been secured by a corresponding railway concession with China since 1898 , which was later supplemented by other conventions.
Paul Doumer's overall concept for a railway network for the colony provided for the construction of the Hanoi – Saigon railway line . The French government behaved more hesitantly here, since the financing of these "Trans-Indochinois" had to come exclusively and directly from state funds. For this purpose, the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Indochine (CFI) was founded as a state railway . The government initially only cautiously approved individual sections.
The era of railway construction
The Yunnan Railway ultimately led from Haiphong via Hanoi and the border station Lào Cai to Yunnan. It was built between 1900 and 1910. The Hanoi – Saigon railway line had been under construction since 1899 - it was not completed until 1936. The Hanoi – Đồng Đăng railway line was handed over to the civil administration by the military in 1896 and then re-gauged to meter gauge . In addition to a number of shorter connecting routes, two other larger railway projects were also tackled:
- With the Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt railway line - as a junction from the north-south railway - a summer resort was developed within reach of Saigon. With three longer rack sections , this runway was particularly complex to operate. It was built between 1913 and 1932.
- The Tân Ằp – Thakhet railway was an even more ambitious project: it was supposed to connect the Vietnamese with the Thai railway network through Laos . The line was built from 1929 to 1937. When after eight years only 19 km of the line in Vietnam had been completed, the project was abandoned because of the topographical difficulties and the associated costs of crossing the border mountains between Vietnam and Laos. In parallel to the planned railway line , the 42 km long cable car Xóm Cúc – Ban Naphao was built from the head of the operated route section over the mountains on the Vietnam side and operated from 1930.
The First World War and the Great Depression caused delays in railway construction. The Second World War brought the railway construction to a complete standstill.
Three wars
Second World War
During World War II, the Vietnamese railroad was an important and heavily used infrastructure for the Japanese occupation. It was therefore an important target for attacks by the Viet Minh and the US Air Force . The north-south railway as the central part of the Vietnamese railway network was damaged or destroyed in many places. After the Second World War, the French colonial power tried to repair the damage.
Indochina War
This only partially succeeded because the Indochina War began. The Việt Minh carried out attacks that were now directed against the French army on the railways. In the French-controlled area, rails were stolen on a large scale and used to build the lines in the Việt Minh-controlled area between Ninh Hoa and Da Nang. The attacks culminated in attacks in 1953 in which bridges were blown up under French armored trains passing over them. With the 1954 Geneva Convention , Vietnam was divided and the north-south railway interrupted. The border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam ran here on the Hiền-Lương Bridge over the Bến Hải in the province of Quảng Trị .
Vietnam war
South Vietnam
South Vietnam repaired the line between Saigon and Huế (1041 km) with US support in the late 1950s . In the Vietnam War that followed, the railway infrastructure was repeatedly damaged or destroyed by air strikes and sabotage . Between 1961 and 1964, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong attacked the North -South Railway 795 times alone . For South Vietnam and the US Army , the route was important for supplies . These attacks prevented the railway from transporting goods on a significant scale. Again and again, entire sections of the route were not passable for long periods of time.
North Vietnam
When North Vietnam , allied with the Communist People's Republic of China , needed improved transport routes to China, building a Chinese rail link on the Hanoi – Đồng Đăng line became a high priority on the Chinese side. The gap was closed in 1955. The Chinese Railways used standard gauge . This subsequently led to the construction of a three- rail track , which today extends from the border to the Hà Nội – Gia Lam station (Hanoi North). A pure standard gauge line to the port of Ha Long was also built branching off from this line .
The US Air Force bombed railroad facilities in North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968 and again from 1972, especially railway bridges, such as the Thanh Hóa railway and road bridge in the province of the same name. The US Navy attacked the bridge several times and damaged it, which repeatedly interrupted traffic. The bridge was repeatedly repaired. It was only destroyed by laser- guided bombs in 1972 .
reunion
After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, Vietnam was reunified and the war ended. The railway systems in the country, which were all under the North Vietnamese Railway Administration, were badly damaged. The repairs began immediately. This was only possible by shutting down other railway lines and expanding material there. For example, the Tháp Chàm – Đà Lạt railway line was stripped of its superstructure and has not been reopened to this day. On December 31, 1976, the continuous operation of the north-south railway from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon was now called, started operating as a symbol of the reunification of the country. In the beginning, this happened under very simple operational conditions, which only allowed top speeds of around 30 km / h. A journey over the 1700 km long route took 2 ½ days.
For the following developments and today's state railway see: Đường sắt Việt Nam (Vietnamese Railway).
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 .
- Nick Ray, Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Iain Stewart: Vietnam . Lonely Planet 2009.
- Florian Schmidt: Vietnam. Railway between Mekong and Red River = steam and travel / Überseeische Eisenbahnen 6 / 1989. [With numerous other references from the mid-1980s.]
Web links
- Homepage of the Vietnamese Railway "Vietnam Train" .
- The man in seat 61. A beginner's guide to rail travel in Vietnam .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmidt, p. 4f.
- ^ Hulot, p. 13.
- ^ Hulot, p. 18.
- ↑ Hulot, p. 31.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Hulot, p. 31f.
- ↑ Hoàng Cơ Thụy: Việt sử khảo luận . Nam Á 2002, p. 1495; Ray.
- ^ Ray.
- ^ Page of the archive of the French Ministry of Defense ECPAD ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ 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. v. November 2006.
- ^ Ray.
- ↑ Joseph M. Heiser, Jr .: Vietnam Studies: Logistic Support , Chapter 6 (1991).
- ^ Ray.
- ^ Günter Krause: The train in the rice field. Railways in Vietnam and Cambodia - a travelogue . In: EisenbahnGeschichte 68 (February / March 2015), p. 75.
- ↑ Ronald Bruce Frankum: Like rolling thunder: the air war in Vietnam, 1964-1975 = Vietnam - America in the war years Bd. 3. 2005. ISBN 0742543021
- ^ NN: A Brief History of Dalat Railroad . 2007.
- ↑ Schmidt, p. 7.
