Battambang Railway Station

I often wonder what the Expats in Cambodia think. Usually they just sit in bars getting drunk or smoking weed in ever increasing frequency or quantity because their bodies have become accustomed to the drugs. But occasionally they do spout off some rubbish. Sometimes about something interesting, like the railway being connected through to Thailand from Cambodia. I ask them where they heard that and they usually site some online publication. I usually don't rely on such fictitious pieces of work and go out and look at infrastructure myself. Go out and find the answers. Who, what, where, how, and when. Or stay in the bar for another drink I guess and do your reporting of facts from your laptop.

The picture that was the choice for the start of the blog is not random. It has real meaning. The clock at Battambang's railway station always says 8:02. It is obviously high noon, you can tell by the shadow cast from the clock. But not at Battambang's railway station, it is now and I am certain will always be 8:02.

Way back in 2008 the Asia development bank, AusAID and Toll thought it would be a splendid idea to refurbish the rail system in Cambodia and immediately opened the money faucet. It was due for completion in 2009. So lets see what progress has been made I guess, after all some random Expat had read it in some bogus online article somewhere. I grabbed my trusty camera and headed down to the local station. After all, one of the things that you would refurbish would be those old relics of railway stations located around Cambodia. People could then buy tickets to go on the train. A full fledged passenger railway station if you will. And there is even locomotive sheds here. Great for housing equipment and as repair shops. Clear away the vegetation from the tracks and make it recognizable as an operating railway station again. The date is late 2014 after all.

The above photos were taken at the railway station in late 2014. I think they show the stunning lack of progress that has been made in the area of rail transport in Cambodia. The last photo shows the 6 track wide entrance to the station, the tracks are under that grass somewhere I assure you. 

One of the problems that Cambodia has is that it fails to export high value goods. This would earn more in valuable foreign currency that would lift this country out of the economic mire that has been the case for the last 40 years. A true manufacturing base would be great to see in this, which you have to term, the basket case economy of ASEAN. But there is no real impetuous to actually do any of this. There is aid money pouring in from overseas. The graduates from local Universities will probably go into the family business of bringing in cheap products from overseas and selling them at a marked up price. Their symbol of pride, the certificate for a Bachelor of Masters in some odd discipline hanging on the wall gathering dust. The social gap between the have and have not's rapidly turning into an insurmountable chasm. 

Khmer owned and operated businesses employing both skilled and unskilled workers alike. Profits and wages staying in the country to be spent and support other businesses here. It sounds like a grand dream, and as I type this I realize that is still, and will probably always be 8:02 at the Battambang Railway Station.