Royal Group has a 30-year contract to operate trains in Cambodia. The company is running one train a day in each direction between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville for a trial period of eight days to gauge public demand. Trains stop at stations in Takeo and Kampot en route.
Royal Group says the current trial trains are taking around eight hours to cover the total 266km journey. Service on this particular line ended 14 years ago. The state operator at the time said the service was no longer a viable option as buses were faster.
The two lines that Cambodia’s railway network once consisted of were laid during French colonial rule in the 1930s. The other line linked Phnom Penh to Poipet on the border with Thailand. In 1946, service on the last stretch of the line from Battambang to Poipet was discontinued. The final Phnom Penh-Battambang train ran in 2009. The supplied image comes by courtesy of Xinhau.
Cambodia marks relaunch of public passenger train services
News in Asia
On Saturday, the first public passenger train to run in Cambodia for seven years departed from Phnom Penh Station. The 07:00 service to Sihanoukville left on time and without an empty seat. At around the same time, the Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh service also departed from the terminus station in the southern seaside resort.