SEMINAR ON MODERNIZATION OF RAILWAY TRANSPORT REPORT
EXISTING SITUATIONS AND PROBLEMS OF RMLWAY TRANSPORT IN CAMBODIA
Since the establishment of the Royal Governmcnt of Cambodia in 1993, the government has took account on the basic principle to formulate the strategy in the organization for rehabilitate of infrastructure of netxvork structure and the development of national economic of Cambodia.
In accordance with the above policy of the government, various project have been elaborated in the various sector, to develop the quality and the capacities of their potential energies, to obtain these goals, Royal Cambodian Rail~vays (RCR) have participated in the economic role of the state by providing the participation of the railway system to development of the national economy during the transition period and to coordinate the operation of the inland transport system with the road and waterway transport.
For that a number of aspects of the strategy for the implementation reform require further elaboration are as follow.
-Present situation and problems
The Royal Cambodian Railways, under Ministry of Public Works and Transport
(MPWT), includes two main lines plus some shorter branch lines.
* The northern line from Phnom Penh to Poipet at the Thai border (385Km). The 48Km
section from Sisophon to Poipet is disused since the early 1970, however there is also a gap at the Thai border and now it may be reconstructed after 1991.
* The southern line starting at the bifurcation 9Km from Phnom Penh station and leading to the port of Sihanoukville (254Km).
The Northern line was constructed 1929-1943, and has never been renewed. The track condition are very poor, the axle load limit is only 13.5 tons, and the speeds are restricted to 5 to 10 kilometer per hour at the same sections between there was many bridges site temporary repaired.
The rail along the Southern line are in a good condition due to the light use since the line was built. The sleepers need to be replaced, however and the quality of the formation is also very poor. Some emergency repairs are now being undertaken as part's of ADB's special rehabilitation assistance project. The same project will also rehabilitate the most urgent bridges and culverts including some of the northern line. Originally this line continue to Poipet where it made and end on connection with the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). Traffic release on this section in 1970's, although the line remained intact until at least 1975, when the Pol-Pot regime took the power.
Currently this 48Km section has been stripped of all the track. This line is know as the old line, was constructed between 1929-1943. There are 96 steel bridges with a total length of 2,401 meters and 82 reinforced concrete bridges with a total length of 1,354 meters. In additional there are a large number of culverts. There is a branch line some six kilometers long from the terminus in Phnom Penli to wharves on the Toahi-Sap river north of the Capital. There are also two short spurs serving quarries at Km.26 and Km.3 16. The line was built using 12 meter length of 30 Kilogram
