The replacement of the picturesque bamboo train by some real passenger and freight trains has been announced as coming for a long time. One of these days it will really happen ...

End of the line for Cambodia's homegrown 'Bamboo Train'
AFP, 1 September 2017
With a wooden platform jerry-rigged to a small engine, Cambodia's one-of-a-kind "Bamboo Train" delights tourists as it clatters through bucolic countryside -- but its days are numbered as the Southeast Asian nation plans a railways overhaul.

The bamboo-lined flat trollies are a testament to Cambodian creativity and enterprise in an impoverished nation with little infrastructure.

They were first invented as part of a homegrown, unofficial transport system to make use of the country's abandoned colonial-era train tracks but later morphed into a popular tourist attraction.

But the hallowed site in northwestern Battambang province will soon be no more as a government project to refurbish the country's dilapidated rail system inches closer.
That is especially worrying news for the community of drivers, ticket-takers and snack vendors who live off the proceeds from the unique attraction that has become a fixture on the tourist circuit...
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/e ... ar-AAr4Ph1

Long article on "norries" [bamboo train vehicles] and the people who worked on them, as well as a rundown on Cambodian train history.

Drivers left in limbo as bamboo trains derailed
12 January 2018
- For almost 30 years, a group of inventive and intrepid people made their living by running Cambodia’s famous bamboo railway, but now they’ve reached the end of the line.
The bamboo railway, about 10 kilometres from Battambang town, was used to transport people and goods along an old set of tracks that was rarely used.

Just over three months ago, the run-down railway line shut for repairs.

Those were recently completed and trains will soon start running along the track that will eventually connect to Thailand, bringing an end to the makeshift bamboo railway, which over the years became a popular tourist attraction, as well as a way to transport people and supplies in the area.

The changes have done away with almost 30 years of regular employment for the group of people who invented and ran the bamboo railway.

Sok Bros, 62, lives in O’Dombang commune and was a pioneer of the famous bamboo trains, known as norri in Khmer.

The former Khmer Rouge fighter said his norri used to regularly support about 50 families who had set up small businesses in the 1980s...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/50101663/dr ... -derailed/