Live Action Report - Kampot - Phnom Penh Express (Not) - Officially Estimated to be 5 hours long - we depart the station at 9:43 am, April 15, 2016

Train ride is lovely - languid, rolling, soothing & quiet. In the deluxe lounge front carriage there are warm, polite & welcoming locals, along with plump faux-leather benches, deep royal blue densely-woven carpet & shockingly cold A/C. Plus, there is the cleanest shiniest toilet I've ever seen on a train - anywhere on the planet.

My journey-comrade next to me, Thea, is a gregarious Khmer pre-med student who is engaging & hilarious. He is a Kampotian & chose rail travel mainly because he is doing his internship in an emergency ward in the capital & was in urgent need of, in his words, "chill time."

I'm the sole pale-skin on the entire train. Whatever. Total cost - $5.00. Where am I? It feels like a "Twilight Zone" episode right about now. Freshly freeze-dried rice noodle soup is soon served by the ersatz dining cart - along with my own artisan-baked pumpkin seed rye bread & extra-sharp Portuguese white cheddar. All of this washed down with a double espresso (Laotian), enriched with a generous dollop of full cream.

I just heard that there's rumored to be "armed & dangerous bandits" ahead on the line. This is proving to be one rough adventure. Indeed.

The safety factor merits mentioning, with a probable factor of, perhaps, 100 times safer than any form of road travel. Yes, while a train can hit waters buffaloes, timber trailers, platoons of chickens & massive Range Rovers, it's still much better on rail than being on a Moto, in a bus or car.

Also, there is abundant overly-glossy poorly-joined, yet 100% genuine, locally-sourced wood paneling. Amazingly, there are even many electrical outlets on the smartly paneled walls to charge all the coconut vendor's smart phones.

The carriage is replete with swirly blue floral 100% cotton curtains for fine-tuning the acoustics mixed with the ever-present polyester Khmer flags - making sure that passengers are reminded where they, actually, are. Frankly, they're needed, in this case. Why? Because this is a wholly new & sparkly version of Khmer regional passenger train service. Not quite Japanese bullet trains, rushing along at 30 kilometers per hour, but, nevertheless, a dramatic improvement in the level of comfort that could be found before on Khmer rail journeys.

I interview a lounging family of 6 sprawled across the ribbed & rolled wine-colored velour seats in the adjacent carriage. The youngest girl, Srey Ka, a newly-minted aged 7, functions as translator because my Khmer is almost useless - pragmatically clunky. This near-fluent English-speaking tyke is impressive as she articulately story-tells her family's reasons for choosing rail travel: A) they can play all over the train B) the cost is competitive with the bus & less than a cramped taxi C) they were just plain curious.

Our train is stopped in Takeo presently, and, so far, there ain't been no unexpected bells or whistles - all rather prosaic & "normal". However, today the earlier opposing PP - Kampot train hit a SUV (or, rather, the other way around, apparently) - no train passengers even moved 1 centimeter, but the careless Lexus 570 was destroyed.

Fortunately, the SUV passengers were spirited away swiftly to a hospital by the car behind them (this firsthand account relayed by a surviving French pharmacist refugee/witness, from the very train in question, who is now sitting across from me). So it goes in the ever-evolving Kingdom of Cambodia...rail still trumps (hate that word now) vehicles on the road!

Rail travel encourages us to be more open, relaxed & observant than usual. Like all trains, our cute 3-car ensemble reveals a social geographical aspect to rolling along the landscape; the last two decades of Khmer development are clearly visible. We can envision an ambitious human hand, in a sweeping linear gesture, replacing the embedded, rustic, earthy, wide vistas with new, bright, hard, glassy structures - sitting atop the surface.

We are now approaching PP & people are becoming visibly excited. The increasing urban sprawl, illustrated by the crowded view through the windows, is appearing pell-mell. Thus begins an accelerating tsunami of assertive & inelegant factories, slowly crumbling, leaning, shanties & mushrooming boreys (gated communities) of various income levels...the airport is nearing.

Someone just ejaculates the explosive phrase "4g" & the carriage erupts into applause. After consistently spotty coverage during the last few hours, there is now dependable Facebook reception. "Hallelujah!", says the plugged-in online social networking choir.

The long & arduous sojourn is coming to an end. Arrival time is 3:19 pm. We, the intrepid pilgrims, the courageous pioneers, are fully bonded after 5.5 hours of shared, extremely demanding, luxury.



PHOTOS (I must include many links BC of Photobucket's unreliable system):

http://s1371.photobucket.com/user/green ... P%20Epress

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http://s1371.photobucket.com/user/green ... P%20Epress

great write up D, will deffo have to try this out

Departed snooky at 9;43 and arrived PP at 3;19. It's getting faster on return trips and that's up hill all the way.

Nice article, dagenham!

Duncan wrote:Departed snooky at 9;43 and arrived PP at 3;19. It's getting faster on return trips and that's up hill all the way.

the train leaves SHV at 7am, Dagenham got on at Kampot at 9:43

Nice article, I look forward to the experience

As my post shows, did it, liked it (SKV/Kampot R/T), but it needs to be able to go faster. The French company that redid (and redid) the rail bed should be held accountable for a botched job. It looks like they used used rails. They do weld them together (then new process instead of bolting together), but you can still see the holes in the rails for bolts. The rails make a lot noise where new welded rails do not. They also need new rolling stock. The engines and cars are very old. Being a diesel mechanic (very large ocean going diesel engines) I can tell you that the engines on the trains I was on were not very well maintained. The blew a lot of black smoke which is either tired engines (rings, bearings, etc) or they need to replace the fuel injectors with new/clean ones. Notice the black soot on the yellow locomotive pictured. You don't get that with a happy diesel engine.

Granted its was a first step, but with the money they spent, a lot may have been diverted to private pockets and not put into rolling stock. Over the years I have ridden all sorts of class's on Thai trains and I would say that the Cambodia train was about the same as a Thai third class local train.

They should bring out that big old steam locomotive they have and run a tourist train. Lots of steam fans around the world would go for a package trip to Cambodia if they could ride an old steam Loco. Advertise it good and maybe tie it in with a cruise ship down in Snookyville. This would help pay for new rolling stock for the locals trains.

Always interesting reading at http://www.railpage.com.au

PP post reports trains will start running again after April 30