Construction of 9–km railway line from Thanaleng to Khamsavat village
Photo from Pnomsin.com website
(KPL) The final report on the feasibility and preliminary design for nine kilometres of railway line from Thanaleng to Vientiane was presented at the trilateral meeting at Don Chan Palace Hotel on 8 August.
Attending the meeting were Minister of Public Works and Transport Mr Sommat Pholsena, Deputy Director of the Lao National Railway Authority, Mr Sonesack Nyansana, representatives of the Lao-Thai Railway Project and officials of the French Development Agency (AFD).
Mr Sonesack said that the final report study would take eight months and nine people would be involved in it, seven foreigners and two Laotians.
He explained that the Bangkok-based AFD had agreed to give 246,565 EURO for the final report study.
According to a futuristic plan, this nine-kilometer line would eventually be connected to Thakhek, Khammouane province, central Laos, and would join the Vietnamese railway line in the Mu Gia district. From this place one can go north to Vietnam’s Hanoi city and in fact it can act as a linkage to the proposed Singapore-Kunming Asian railway network.
“This is the number one railway of Asia and Laos is giving this project top priority,” said Mr Sonesack.
The estimated cost of the construction is US$ 22 million and the project will take three years to complete.
Three hundred and thirteen households would have to be relocated as their houses were in the path of the proposed railway line.
good news!!! do you have a map of the railroad route?? how close to the city will it end up at??? i dont even know what town it will end up at.. after 9km.. i hope it is close to city center.
i hope the future station won't be too far from That Luang and Lao itec. 1km max would be fine (and there is a huge "free" space for building a station there), but on the map i saw, it seems to be located a little bit more far! That's sad because this mean it won't really be possible to join those 2 important place walking from the train station. The station would be so isolated that everyone will have to take taxi, or tuktuk, or car to join any important place of the city. Not economical, not ecological, and more trafic jams and parking places needed :(