Rail transport in Laos

Road and rails on the Friendship Bridge

Thanaleng train station

Train in Thanaleng station

The railway in Laos is currently only a short segment of the railway line Nong Khai-Thanaleng .

history

Railway traffic in Laos was initiated by the French colonial power of the time . These built

• opened in 1897, 7 km long narrow-gauge railway from Don Det to Don Khon. It was in operation until 1941 and was used to bypass a section of the Mekong that was not passable for ships due to the rapids . Old tracks, a bridge that is only used by pedestrians and a picturesque locomotive rusting in the undergrowth still bear witness to this project.

→ Main article : Don Det – Don Khon railway line

• on the Tân Ằp – Thakhet railway from Vietnam to Laos. It was never completed and rails were never laid in Laos.

→ Main article : Tân Ằp – Thakhet railway line

Active railway line

Today there is again an active railway line in Laos, which leads from Nong Khai in Thailand over the first friendship bridge spanning the Mekong to Thanaleng station in Laos . After the plan to extend the line to the capital Vientiane was initially abandoned in 2010, the Thai government promised to finance the 7.8 kilometer extension to Vientiane in July 2012, but the extension has not yet been implemented.

→ Main article : Nong Khai – Thanaleng railway line

Regular passenger traffic started at the end of March 2009 and is operated by the Thai State Railways . Two pairs of trains run daily. In addition, the Eastern and Oriental Express has been operating this route occasionally since February 2010 . There is no own Laotian railway company .

Rail projects

Kunming – Singapore high-speed line

→ Main article : Kunming – Singapore high-speed line

According to press reports, construction work on a high-speed link from southern China to Vientiane should begin in April 2011 . The information given there is not very credible, both in terms of the construction times mentioned and the driving speed. According to this, more than 400 km of new lines per year and travel speeds of over 400 km / h would be planned. In December 2015 it was announced that construction would begin in 2015 ^[obsolete] and that the Kunming-Vientiane line would be completed in 2020.

Thailand – Vietnam railway line

Another project is a 215 km long transit connection in Central Laos from the Thai border town of Mukdahan on the west bank of the Mekong via the opposite Laotian border town of Savannakhet on the east bank of the Mekong to the Vietnamese border near Lao Bảo , from where there is a connection to the port of Đà Nẵng is planned.

Other projects

The routes are still being planned

• Vientiane - Luang Prabang - Boten (Chinese border) - 530 km
• Boten (Chinese border) - Ban Houayxay (Thai border) - 230 km
• Vientiane - Thakhek - Pakse - 702 km
• Luang Prabang - Xiang Khuang - Vietnam - 298 km
• Pakxan - Xiang Khuang - 123 km
• Thakhek - Mu Gia Pass (Vietnamese border) - 155 km
• Na Pong - Salavan - La Lai Deo (Vietnamese border) - 215 km

None of these rail projects has been implemented so far.

literature

• Brendan Whyte: The Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia . Bangkok 2010. ISBN 978-974-480-157-9

swell

1. ↑ Whyte, pp. 143-150.
2. ↑ http://iley.de/index.php?pageID=20000000&article=00000461
3. ↑ Press release on the construction stop ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) 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. 
4. ↑ Thailand to fund Laos rail link extension. railway-technology.com, July 24, 2012, accessed July 29, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Stefan Loose: News overview from the Vientiane Times from 1.-31. May 2009
6. ↑ rst: Laos / Thailand: New border crossing Thanaleng-Nong Khai . In: IBSE-Telegram 235 (June 2010), p. 6.
7. ↑ rst: Laos / Thailand: New border crossing Thanaleng-Nong Khai . In: IBSE-Telegram 235 (June 2010), p. 6.
8. ↑ Asia's emerging economies are moving closer together . In: FAZ No. 25, January 31, 2011, p. 13.
9. ↑ Work begins on Kunming to Singapore high-speed railway ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 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. 
10. ↑ Kunming-Singapore high speed rail to be completed by 2020
11. ↑ Construction of China-Laos Railway begins in December
12. ^ Trans-Laos railway survey agreed. (No longer available online.) In: www.railwaygazette.com. December 4, 2008, formerly in the original ; Retrieved December 18, 2008 (English).  ( 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.    
13. ↑ Whyte, p. 157.
14. ↑ Whyte, p. 157.