Yunnan Railway

Yunnan Railway 滇越鐵路  /  滇越铁路 , Diān-Yuè Tiělù Tuyến đường sắt Hải Phòng - Vân Nam ( Le chemin de fer du Yunnan)
The Wujiazhai Railway Bridge over the Nánxī Hé .
Route length:	855 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend from Panzhihua standard gauge : 1435 mm 昆明 北 Kunming-North, Panlong ( Kūnmíng Běi ) (1892 m) according to Guiyang standard gauge: 1435 mm 黑土 凹 Heitu'ao, Guandu ( Hēitǔ'āo ) 牛街 庄 Niujiezhuang, Guandu ( Niújiēzhuāng ) 小 喜 村 Xiaoxi, Guandu ( Xiǎoxǐ Cūn ) 广 卫 村 Guangwei, Guandu ( Guǎngwèi Cūn ) 跑马山 Paomashan, Guandu ( Pǎomǎshān ) 呈贡　 Chenggong ( Chénggòng ) 王家 营 Wangjiaying, Chenggong ( Wángjiāyíng ) (1907 m) 三 家村 Sanjiacun, Chenggong ( Sānjiācūn ) 七 甸　 Qidian, Chenggong ( Qīdián ) 水塘　 Shuitang, Chenggong ( Shuǐtáng ) (2026 m) 阳宗海 Yangzonghai, Yiliang ( Yángzōnghǎi ) 凤鸣 村 Fengming, Yiliang ( Fèngmíng Cūn ) 可 保 村 Kebao, Yiliang ( Kěbǎo Cūn ) numerous tunnels 水晶 波 Shuijingbo, Yiliang ( Shuǐjīngbō ) numerous tunnels 江 头村 Jiangtou, Yiliang ( Jiāngtóu Cūn ) (1540 m) numerous tunnels 宜良　 Yiliang ( Yíliáng ) 羊 街 子 Yangjiezi, Yiliang ( Yángjiēzi ) 狗 街 子 Goujiezi, Yiliang ( Gǒujiēzi ) 滴水　 Dishui, Yiliang ( Dīshuǐ ) 徐家 渡 Xujiadu, Yiliang ( Xújiādù ) 禄 丰村 Lufeng, Huaning ( Lùfēng Cūn ) 糯 租　 Nuozu, Huaning ( Nuòzū ) numerous tunnels 大 沙田 Dashatian, Huaning ( Dàshātián ) 西 洱　 Xi'er, Mile ( Xī'ěr ) (1160 m) 小 河口 Xiao Hekou, Mile ( Xiǎo Hékǒu ) 盘溪　 Panxi, Huaning ( Pánxī ) 热水塘 Reshuitang, Mile ( Rèshuǐtáng ) 西 扯 邑 Xicheyi, Mile ( Xīchěyì ) numerous tunnels 拉里 黑 Lalihei, Mile ( Lālǐhēi ) 巡检 司 Xunjiansi, Mile ( Xúnjiǎnsī ) 灯笼 山 Denglongshan, Mile ( Dēnglóngshān ) 小 龙潭 Xiaolongtan, Kaiyuan ( Xiǎolóngtán ) several tunnels 打 兔 寨 Datuzhai, Kaiyuan ( Dǎtùzhài ) 十里 村 Shilicun, Kaiyuan ( Shílǐcūn ) 开 远　 Kaiyuan ( Kāiyuǎn ) several tunnels 玉林 山 Yulinshan, Kaiyuan ( Yùlínshān ) 大 塔　 Data, Kaiyuan ( Dàtǎ ) (1059 m) 驻 马 哨 Zhumashao, Kaiyuan ( Zhùmǎshào ) 大 庄　 Dazhuang, Kaiyuan ( Dàzhuāng ) 草坝　 Caoba, Mengzi ( Cǎobà ) 碧色 寨 Bisezhai, Mengzi ( Bìsèzhài ) (1356 m) Bisezhai – Shiping railway track 600 mm 黑 龙潭 Heilongtan, Mengzi ( Hēilóngtán ) (1547 m) Col de Milati tunnel (1700 m) 芷 村　 Zhicun, Mengzi ( Zhǐcūn ) (1630) 落水洞 Luoshuidong, Mengzi ( Luòshuǐdòng ) (1552 m) 戈 姑　 Gegu, Mengzi ( Gēgū ) (1380 m) a total of 16 tunnels 111 Wujiazhai Railway Bridge over the Nánxī Hé 倮 姑　 Luogu, Pingbian ( Luǒgū ) (1166 m) several tunnels 亭 塘　 Tingtang, Pingbian ( Tíngtáng ) 老街 子 Laojiezi, Pingbian ( Lǎojiēzi ) 菠 渡 箐 Boduqing, Pingbian ( Bōdùqìng ) (915 m) several tunnels 冲 庄　 Chongzhuang, Pingbian ( Chòngzhuāng ) 湾 塘　 Wantang, Pingbian ( Wāntáng ) (619 m) 83 Baizhai Bridge over Nam-Ti tributary 白 寨　 Baizhai, Pingbian ( Báizhài ) (388 m) several tunnels 白鹤 桥 Baiheqiao, Pingbian ( Báihèqiáo ) 腊 哈 地 Lahadi, Pingbian ( Làhādì ) (245 m) 大树 塘 Dashutang, Pingbian ( Dàshùtáng ) 老 范 寨 Laofanzhai, Hekou ( Lǎofànzhài ) 马 街　 Majie, Hekou ( Mǎjiē ) 南溪　 Nanxi, Hekou ( Nánxī ) 蚂蝗 堡 Mahuangpu, Hekou ( Mǎhuángpù ) 山腰　 Shanyao, Hekou ( Shānyāo ) 河口　 Hekou ( Hékǒu ) 0 State border China - Vietnam Lao Cai (88 m) Pho-Moi Thai Nien Pho-Lu Thai van Bao-Ha Long-thip Long key Trai-Hutt Dong Cuong Mo-Ha Trai-Nhoi Ngoi hop Dao-Thinh Co-Phuc Yên Bái Van Phu Duan-Thuong Am-Thuong Cho-Don Vinh-Chien Vu-yen Than-Bà Hieu-Lè Chi-Chu Phu-tho Ha-thach Tien-Kien Phu-Duc Vietri Clear river (295 m) Cai-Hac Bac-Hat Huong-Lai Cho-Coi Vinh-yen Huong-Canh Thap-Mieu Thach-Loi 0 Red river 41 Ha dong to Văn Thiển ( Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City railway ) Dong-Do My-Noi-Thon End of three-rail track Hanoi – Quan Trieu railway line, three -rail track Dong-Anh Duc Noi Xuan-Kieu Hanoi – Đồng Đăng three- rail line Yen Vien 0 Hà Nội – Gia Lam End of three-rail track Hanoi – Ho Chi Minh City railway line Co-Bi Phu-thuy Nhu-Ouynh Dinh-you Lac-Dao Dong-Xà Xuan Dao Cam-Giang Narrow gauge railway to Phu-Ninh-Giang On-service Cao-xa Thai Binh (380 m) Hai-Duong Tien Trung Song-Lai-Vu (120 m) Lai-khe Pham-Xa Cho-Gioi Phu Thai Cho-Phi You Nghia Cho-Ho Vat-Cach-Thuong Thuong-Ly Hải Phong Market Som-Tam-Bac (90 m) Hải Phong Hải Phong port

The Yunnan Railway (also: Yünnan Railway , French : Le chemin de fer du Yunnan , Chinese  滇越鐵路  /  滇越铁路 , Pinyin Diān-Yuè Tiělù , Vietnamese Tuyến đường sắt Hải Phòng - Vân Nam ) is a meter-gauge railway line , which connects the port city of Hoi Phong in Vietnam with Kunming , the capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan .

history

prehistory

In 1885 a Franco-Chinese war was ended when the Chinese Empire ceded the Tonking province to France and France also had to grant the right to build railroad lines in its southern provinces. In 1887, based on the results of two expeditions to Yunnan, inter-ministerial discussions in Paris about the construction of a railway line from Tonking to Kunming , without this leading to a concrete project. In 1897 two further expeditions took place - financed on the one hand by entrepreneurs from Lyon , on the other hand by the French Foreign Ministry. Thereafter, the development of Yunnan with a railway was considered to be economically sensible and the only possible route for a railway line was identified as the valley of the Red River . The project reflected historically grown economic relationships that linked the southern Chinese province of Yunnan and Indochina . The French government quickly agreed to the construction of the Yunnan Railway, especially since there was apparently enough private capital to finance the route.

A corresponding railway concession agreement with the Chinese Empire was of consul Auguste François obtains and 1898 later supplemented by additional conventions. In order to cover up the imperialist aspect of the project - above all from the competing colonial power Great Britain - only the section in Tonking was built as the state railway of the French Indochina colony , while the construction of the section in China was entrusted to a consortium organized under private law consisted entirely of eight French companies and banks. After initial cost estimates of over 70 million francs were available in 1898, the two major banks Crédit Lyonnais and Banque des Paris et des Pays-Bas (Paribas) withdrew from the consortium.

In order to save the project, Paul Doumer (1857–1932), Governor General of French Indochina since 1897 and later French President , presented the overall concept of a railway network for the colony in 1898 . It also included the Yunnan Railway . He promised the consortium that it would get the operating rights to the state-built section in Tonking when it built the Chinese section. The cost estimate had meanwhile risen to 101 million francs for the section in China alone. The colony wanted to advance 88 million francs to the consortium, which would then be repaid from the operating profits. With that the work began.

construction

The route is kilometered in Vietnam from Hanoi: Hanoi is kilometer 0 for the branch to Hải Phòng as well as for the Chinese border. The Chinese section of the route has its own kilometrage, for which the border bridge in Lào Cai is kilometer 0 is.

In its southern part, which crosses the plain of the Red River, there were no significant obstacles in the way of the route. The construction of the 104 km long Hải Phong – Hanoi section began in 1900 and was inaugurated on April 1, 1903. Between Hanoi and Lào Cai, the Red River, which ran parallel to the planned route, was available as a transport route for material and workers. Two steamships and a gunboat represented the "motorized" part of the shipping used for this purpose. There were also 50 local junks and 8,000 mules and horses. In the section north of the Chinese border, however, the route had to be built through topographically very difficult terrain. A total of 173 bridges (107 of them in China) and 158 tunnels (155 of them in China) were required. The route overcomes a length of 855 km (465 km of which in China) more than 2,000 meters in altitude. This required curve radii of only 50 meters and gradients of up to 30 ‰. The railway reaches its highest point at 2097 m at the Chinese route kilometer 398. This is one of the reasons why meter gauge was chosen for them. In addition, there were political difficulties: the Vice-King of Yunnan distrusted the growing influence of the Europeans in his territory due to the railway and tried to prevent the construction sites from being supplied from his sphere of influence. All this drove up the costs of the project drastically: In the sparsely populated mountain region, the most expensive railway line in Indochina was laid at a cost of 192,000 francs per kilometer .

The following sections were opened:

• November 1, 1903: Hanoi – Vietri
• May 1, 1904: Vietri – Yen-Bay
• February 1, 1906: Yen-Bay– Lào Cai

A special engineering structure is the Wujiazhai Railway Bridge ( Wujiazhai tieluqiao ) built between 1907 and 1908 in the Pingbian Autonomous County of Miao ( 屏边 县 ) in the Chinese route kilometer 111. The colloquial name Renziqiao comes from the fact that the steel girders of its construction use the Chinese character ( zi ) for human ( ren ), 人, resemble. The route leads directly to tunnels on both sides of the bridge that emerge from steep rock faces. The bridge has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (6-1053) since 2006 .

At least 12,000 of the total of 60,000 local workers and around 80 European workers died during the construction of the railway, many of malaria . The entire line was opened on March 31, 1910.

The construction of the railway turned out to be much more expensive than originally estimated. In 1909 the colony had to provide a further 53 million francs as a subsidy so that construction could continue at all.

business

Entrance building of the Lao Cai train station

In the end, the construction cost 167 million francs, almost all of which were raised by the state. In addition, the section located in China had a high operating deficit, which always had to be compensated for by the surpluses on the Hanoi – Hải Phòng section.

Chemins de Fer de l'indochine et du Yunnan (CIY)

The railway company operating the route , the Chemins de Fer de l'indochine et du Yunnan (CIY), was only able to repay some of the state loans. That is why the state refused in 1926 to help finance the proposed electrification of the line. Electrification had been considered by the CIY because the coal extracted in Yunnan was unsuitable for firing steam locomotives . The locomotive coal also had to be imported for the route in Yunnan via the port of Hải Phong. Sufficient capacity for hydropower plants, however, would have been available.

The CIY had its head office in Hanoi. The president of the society and part of the central administration resided in Paris . The CIY employed around 1930 about 4800 local people and 150-200 French employees. The number of locals rose to 11,950 by 1939.

Railway operations

Beginnings

The traffic on the route was strongest in the most densely populated areas: the Hanoi-Hải Phong route was served by 10 pairs of trains, while between Lào Cai and Kunming only one train per day and this was also a mixed train . There were only mixed trains at all north of Yen Bay. The continuous journey looked like this: The travelers left Hanoi in the morning. A two-hour stop was made in Yen-Bay for lunch. On the second day they reached Kai-Yuen. At first there was no hotel, only Chinese hostels or generous railway employees who let European passengers stay with them. The CIY later built an overnight bungalow that was destroyed in a Japanese air raid in 1940. The travelers did not reach Kunming until the evening of the third day.

The signaling along the route was initially rudimentary. It was not until 1930 and 1934 that a modern, French railways corresponding signal system was installed. All train stations down to the third class were given generators to produce electricity that fed batteries , which in turn powered the light signals .

At the beginning of the 20th century, the political structures in China quickly disintegrated. In 1912 the monarchy was overthrown and the Chinese Republic was proclaimed. Soon after, a civil war began in which regional military leaders, "warlords", wielded power - no fewer than 12 in Yunnan between 1911 and 1936! In this respect, the agreements made between France and the railway company on the one hand and the Chinese state on the other were of little value. The politically insecure situation lasted until 1938. The railway company had to come to terms with the local rulers to keep operations going.

1920s and 1930s

The original aim of the railway was to transport the mineral riches of Yunnan Province. The high construction costs of the route and its gradients, which only allowed short freight trains, resulted in high transport costs. In this way, bulk goods could hardly be transported at economically justifiable prices. Hard coal from Japan was z. B. Hanoi cheaper than imported from Yunnan. Thus opium that has been cultivated there in large quantity and high quality, one of the main transport goods by rail and the most popular contraband on the China / Indo-Chinese border. Of the total freight traffic on the route, only 4–5% was exported from Yunnan to Indochina or overseas. The volume of imports from Yunnan Province via the port of Hải Phong was much larger. When - due to the civil war - the currency of Yunnan fell into disrepair in 1927, this also resulted in considerable losses for the railways, followed by the Great Depression . However, apart from the years 1932–1935, it was always possible to achieve positive results. In passenger four were car classes offered, with the top two for Europeans, the 3rd and 4th class was meant for locals.

There were numerous attacks on trains in the 1920s, which also resulted in deaths. Europeans were also kidnapped. In one case in 1929, wagon loads of opium were demanded as a ransom. Another high point of these raids were the years 1935/1936 when the Chinese government expelled the communist partisans from Yunnan, later referred to euphemistically as the " Long March ". During this time there were numerous raids on trains.

In 1935, an express connection between Hanoi and Kunming was set up for well-to-do travelers - only for 1st class travelers. From Hanoi at 8:30 p.m., a night train with a 1st class sleeping car went to Lào Cai (arrives at 5:45 a.m.). From there a Micheline left for Kunming at 6:05 a.m. , which arrived there at 6:42 p.m. and also only led the 1st class. The connection was not a great economic success: it was limited to 15 places due to the capacity of the Micheline, but it was only 40% full. Tickets for 1st class, which are actually reserved for Europeans, only made up a tiny fraction of the business anyway: around 1.6 ‰ of the tickets issued. Overall, the number of all travelers almost doubled between 1913 and 1937 from 2.3 million (121,000 of them covered the entire route) to 4.4 million (214,000 of them covered the entire route).

From around 1930, competition from road traffic began in Tonking. The railway responded by making return tickets cheaper in fourth class and setting up additional stops near villages along the route. In Yunnan, however, where there were hardly any roads, it retained its monopoly . An airfield was established in Kunming in the late 1930s . The weather conditions in the area, fog and clouds in the mountains, made the connection very unreliable and the low capacity and high prices of the air traffic at the time did not result in any real competition for the railroad.

Sino-Japanese War and World War II

When the Japanese Empire invaded the Chinese Republic in 1937, it was able to conquer the north of the country and the port cities on the coast relatively quickly. The Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek had to withdraw to the south of the country. The only reasonably efficient transport route from overseas to get there was the Yunnan Railway and the republican-democratic French government stood in the conflict on the side of the Chinese government - even if neutrality was officially declared. The Chinese government now imported its supplies via the port of Hải Phong. Instead of 7 freight trains a week, up to 150 now ran across the border and blocked the route to an unprecedented extent. In June 1940, 25,000 tons of freight were carried in both directions. The CIY used the plight of the Chinese and their monopoly position: They increased the freight tariffs by five to six times and made good money from the situation. From 1937 to 1938 CIY's profits rose by 55% and from 1937 to 1939 the number of freight wagons carried by over 142%.

The French support for the Chinese government was, of course, a reason for the Japanese to attack the railroad. At first this could only be done from the air. From the summer of 1939 there were repeated air raids - but initially only with limited effect: the approach routes were long and the runway ran over long distances in narrow valleys, which protected it from air raids. On February 1, 1940, the Japanese attacked a bridge at kilometer 235 in two waves of attack with 50 bombers, the steel lattice framework of which was brought down. A train was hit while it was pulling onto the bridge. 85 people died and 120 were injured.

→ Main article : Yunnan railway accident

An auxiliary bridge was built. But it took until May 1940 to fully resume traffic - but only for a short time. With the capitulation of France to the German Reich in World War II on 22./25. In June 1940 the French colonial army in Indochina stood there without any support and immediately came under massive Japanese pressure to stop any delivery to their Chinese war opponents. On the recommendation of the Indochinese colonial government, the CIY withdrew all vehicles from the Chinese part to Indochina as quickly as possible on June 23, 1940. On June 28, 1940, cross-border traffic was interrupted under pressure from the Japanese. On September 9, 1940, the last train operated by the CIY in the Chinese section. Since the Yunnan Railway now appeared to the Chinese as a potential gateway for the Japanese from the south, on September 17, 1940, Chinese pioneers blew up the border bridge and other engineering structures in the southern part of the Chinese route section. The section located in China was partly operated provisionally by the Chinese side, partly the line was dismantled in an attempt to build a railway line from Kunming to the (still) British Burma . On August 1, 1943, the Chinese government then confiscated the route. The remaining CIY staff were replaced by Chinese.

In the Hanoi – Lào Cai section, traffic requirements fell dramatically after these events. Now only two trains ran north and of these only one to the current terminus Lào Cai. In contrast, the Hi Phong – Hanoi section continued to see heavy traffic, as the road did not present much competition due to a lack of fuel and tires .

Chinese section

First train on the Baizhai Bridge (km 83 of the Chinese section), March 30, 1908

After the end of the Second World War, a treaty was reached between France and the National-Chinese government. It provided for a binational, joint management of the Chinese section of the route, as well as a Chinese customs-free port in Hải Phong. In fact, this was no longer implemented: it was not possible to restore the line to working order before the Chinese People's Liberation Army prevailed in Yunnan in 1949. The government of the People's Republic of China did not recognize any of the existing treaties and in fact nationalized the Chinese section of the route, which was no longer passable after the war damage.

Following the 600 mm Bisezhai – Shiping railway line, the Yunnan Railway from Bisezhai to Hekou was occupied and operated with a 600 mm track by local forces. In 1955, the People's Republic of China decided to rebuild the entire line in meter gauge because an allied government had now taken power in North Vietnam . The line was rebuilt in just one and a half years. The continuous connection was put into operation as early as 1957. However, this remained an island operation until 1970 the standard-gauge line from the network of the Chinese Railway Kunming reached. The terminus of the meter-gauge railway was therefore relocated to the station of the standard-gauge railway in the north of the city.

In 1979, cross-border traffic was interrupted again when tensions between Vietnam and China escalated into a border war.

In recent years, the poor condition of the line on the Chinese side increasingly endangered rail traffic. For safety reasons, passenger traffic on the Chinese route section was stopped in 2003, with the exception of the last 24 km near Kunming . A new standard gauge line from Kunming to the Vietnamese border is to be built by 2015 ^[obsolete] .

Vietnamese sections

In Vietnam, the nationalist resistance against the Japanese flowed into that against the colonial power, which tried to restore the pre-war state after the defeat of the Japanese. The infrastructure of the section to the Chinese border was extensively looted and numerous attacks were carried out on the section to Hải Phòng. Only three pairs of trains were able to run passenger traffic on this section per day. The vehicle fleet, which had already been severely decimated by the effects of the war, suffered further losses.

On January 1, 1947, the CIY was merged with the state railway, the company also legally dissolved in 1967. The attacks continued and lasted until the withdrawal of the French under the Geneva Convention in October 1954. The North Vietnamese government immediately began rehabilitating the line between Hanoi and the Chinese border, which connected it to the allied People's Republic of China. The same happened on the Chinese side. The means available for this were the French resources and techniques.

Only a decade later, the Vietnam War, the next war hit the infrastructure of the line - especially the Hanoi – Hải Phong section: on August 11, 1967, the USA carried out a massive air raid in which three railway bridges were destroyed. It took the North Vietnamese seven weeks before trains on temporary bridges could use the route again continuously. Another air strike followed immediately in October, the destruction of which took eight weeks to repair, followed by a third attack in December. Now the North Vietnamese turned to river barges to maintain the transport between Hải Phong and Hanoi.

Today, one day train and three night trains run daily in the Lào Cai - Hà Nội section, which also run privately operated sleeping cars with improved service and serve tourist traffic to Sa Pa . Four day trains operate in the Hà Nội - Hải Phong section.

Movies

• The Yunnan Railway. Part 1: From Hải Phong to Hekou. Part 2: From Hekou to Kunming. Documentary film, PR China, Vietnam, Germany, 2008, 43 min. Each, script and director: Ingmar Trost, production: Florianfilm, Shanghai Media Group (SMG), ZDF , arte , first broadcast: April 16, 2009 by arte, summary by arte .
• Christian-Jacque: Les Pirates du Rail . 1938 [The exterior shots were shot in Provence , however].

swell

literature

• Lucien Bodard: La fille du consul . 1975.
• Michel Brugiere: Le chemin de fer du Yunnan. Paul Doumer et la politique d'intervention française en Chine (1889–1902) , in: Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique , No. 3, Paris, 1963
• Le Chemin de Fer du Yunnan. 2 volumes (text and table volume). Paris, Goury, 1910
• 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
• Li Kunwu : The railroad above the clouds . (Comic report on the history of the Yunnan Railway). Edition Moderne, 2016
• Pierre Marbotte: Un chemin de fer au Yunnan, l'aventure d'une famille française en Chine . Editions Alan Sutton, St-Cyr sur Loire, 2006. ISBN 978-2-8491-0376-0
• Otto Meister: You whistles echo in the wild mountain gorges . Limmat-Verlag, Zurich 2014. ISBN 978-3-85791-677-9
• Florian Schmidt: Vietnam. Railway between Mekong and Red River = steam and travel / Überseeische Eisenbahnen 6/1989.

Web links

• A Hundred Years on the Platform: Notes on Yunnan-Vietnam Railway ( Memento August 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) - English
• Le petit train du Yunnan - French
• Lai xun yi jiu yi ling nian de lieche (Le train qui nous vient de 1910) - French
• Phòng.htm Hải Phòng - French
• Dian-Yue tielu xu cangsang - Chinese
• Renziqiao
• NN: Yunnan Railway Museum . In: Tiny Adventures Tours.

Remarks

1. ↑ A total of 13 tunnels between Kebao and Yiliang.
2. ↑ A total of 5 tunnels between Nuozu and Xi'er.
3. ↑ A total of 6 tunnels between Xicheyi and Xunjiansi.
4. ↑ A total of 4 tunnels between Xiaolongtan and Kaiyuan.
5. ↑ A total of 11 tunnels between Kaiyuan and Dazhuang.
6. ↑ A total of 27 tunnels between Luogu and Boduqing.
7. ↑ A total of 4 tunnels between Boduqing and Wantang.
8. ↑ A total of 6 tunnels between Baizhai and Lahadi.
9. ↑ Hulot, pp. 39–42, gives a photo series about the technically spectacular construction of the bridge in the narrow gorge.

Individual evidence

1. ^ See: Hulot, pp. 28, 39.
2. ^ Schmidt, pp. 9, 18.
3. ↑ Hulot, p. 30.
4. ↑ Hulot, p. 31.
5. ↑ 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. 23ff.
6. ↑ Hulot, p. 31.
7. ↑ Hulot, p. 32.
8. ↑ Hulot, p. 33.
9. ↑ Hulot, p. 33.
10. ↑ Hulot, p. 37f.
11. ↑ Hulot, p. 38.
12. ↑ Hulot, p. 35.
13. ^ Hulot, p. 37.
14. ↑ Hulot, p. 34.
15. ↑ Hulot, p. 38.
16. ↑ Hulot, p. 32.
17. ^ Hulot, p. 59.
18. ↑ Hulot, p. 32.
19. ^ Hulot, p. 59.
20. ^ Hulot, p. 45.
21. ^ Hulot, p. 49.
22. ↑ Hulot, pp. 49f.
23. ^ Hulot, p. 59.
24. ^ Hulot, p. 60.
25. ↑ Hulot, p. 33.
26. ^ Hulot, p. 45.
27. ↑ Hulot, p. 33.
28. ^ Hulot, p. 46.
29. ^ Hulot, p. 47.
30. ^ Hulot, p. 48.
31. ^ Hulot, p. 49.
32. ↑ Hulot, pp. 54f.
33. ^ Hulot, p. 60.
34. ^ Hulot, p. 62.
35. ^ Hulot, p. 49.
36. ^ Hulot, p. 54.
37. ↑ Hulot, p. 53.
38. ↑ Hulot, pp. 54f.
39. ^ Hulot, p. 56.
40. ^ Hulot, p. 57.
41. ↑ Hulot, pp. 133f.
42. ^ Hulot, p. 134.
43. ↑ Hulot, p. 138.
44. ^ Hulot, p. 139.
45. ↑ Hulot, p. 142.
46. ^ Hulot, p. 140.
47. ^ Hulot, p. 141.
48. ↑ Hulot, pp. 140f.
49. ^ Hulot, p. 141.
50. ^ Hulot, p. 141.
51. ↑ Hulot, p. 142.
52. ^ Hulot, p. 144.
53. ↑ Hulot, pp. 143f.
54. ^ Hulot, p. 144.
55. ^ Hulot, p. 145.
56. ^ Hulot, p. 145.
57. ^ A beginner's guide to train travel in Vietnam , seat61.com
58. ^ Hulot, p. 147.
59. ^ See: Hulot, p. 147.