Phnom Penh Royal railway station (french: Gare de Phnom Penh) is a
railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
in
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
,
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
. It is located next to the
University of Health Sciences and the National University of Management as well as the Canadian embassy. This station was renovated and formally reopened October 22, 2010.
Scheduled passenger train services between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville resumed in May 2016 after having been suspended for 14 years. After that, many passenger train service continue to resume. As of May 2021, there is scheduled train service between Phnom Penh to Krong Pursat, Krong Battambang, Krong Sisophon, and Poipet. There will be a passenger train service from Phnom Penh to Bangkok by 2022.
In April 2018, trains operated by Royal Railway began running express from
Phnom Penh International Airport
Phnom Penh International Airport ( km, អាកាសយានដ្ឋានអន្តរជាតិភ្នំពេញ; french: Aéroport international de Phnom Penh) is the busiest and largest airport in Cambodia, occupying a land ar ...
to Phnom Penh railway station. As of 2019, Royal Railway runs 44 trains each day, and 15–16 freight trains to Sihanoukville and Poipet.
Construction
The process of building the station was hampered by the rainy season. "A considerable advance was thus taken during the first year and, in 1931, the Company concentrated all her effort on the one hand on the Phnom Penh train station, including embankments, buildings and facilities, which are of an exceptional importance, and secondly on ballast supplies. Meanwhile, nature, so often hostile in Cambodia, became the main auxiliary against the engineers by packing embankments and consolidating them with vegetation. Good weather having returned, work actively resumed with the rehabilitation of the embankments and the levelling of the platform."
The station was built in 1932 from
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
to service the railway to
Battambang
Battambang ( km, បាត់ដំបង, UNGEGN: ) is the capital of Battambang Province and the third largest city in Cambodia.
Founded in the 11th century by the Khmer Empire, Battambang is the leading rice-producing province of the coun ...
.
History
On September 28–30, 1960, twenty-one leaders of the
Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) held a secret congress at the station. The meeting resulted in the party being renamed as the
Workers Party of Kampuchea (WPK). In
Democratic Kampuchea
Kampuchea ( km, កម្ពុជា ), officially known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK; km, កម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ) from 5 January 1976, was a one-party totalitarian state which encompassed modern-day Camb ...
, this pivotal meeting would later be projected as the founding date of the party.
[Chandler, David P., ]
Revising the Past in Democratic Kampuchea: When Was the Birthday of the Party?: Notes and Comments
', in Pacific Affairs
''Pacific Affairs'' (''PA'') is a Canadian peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes academic research on contemporary political, economic, and social issues in Asia and the Pacific. The journal was founded in 1926 as the newsletter for the ...
, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Summer, 1983), pp. 288-300. The first important meeting of the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...
leadership including
Pol Pot
Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist a ...
was held at the railway station in April 1975, following the
fall of Phnom Penh
The Fall of Phnom Penh was the capture of Phnom Penh, capital of the Khmer Republic (in present-day Cambodia), by the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, effectively ending the Cambodian Civil War. At the beginning of April 1975, Phnom Penh, one of th ...
at which the decision to
evacuate the cities was taken.
[Osborne, p. 149]
See also
*
Rail transport in Cambodia
Cambodia has of metre gauge rail network, consisting of two lines: one from the capital Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, and another from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border. The lines were originally constructed during the time when the co ...
Notes
*
References
External links
Wikimapia Phnom Penh train station
Railway stations in Cambodia
Transport buildings and structures in Phnom Penh
Transport in Phnom Penh
Railway stations opened in 1932
Buildings and structures completed in 1932
1932 establishments in Cambodia
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