Publicity

Eric Campbell rides Cambodia’s unique bamboo railway – a system of “carriages” made from recycled tank wheels and bamboo slats, powered by small motorcycle engines.

The “trains”, or “norries”, from the French word for lorry, were developed by enterprising locals around the Battambang area as a way of getting people and goods to market at the end of Khmer Rouge period.

The KR banned ordinary people from using the proper railways developed by the French in colonial times, and the roads were either non-existent, too dangerous due to land mines and marauding soldiers, or constantly flooding.

So Cambodians came up with hand cars that travel on the state-built train tracks – and with the arrival of the UN in the 1990s, came petrol powered motors as well. Now, at a top speed of 50 kilometres per hour, the norry network is far superior to the unreliable and extremely slow train service.

Campbell runs for train

Music

00:00

CAMPBELL: It’s 6.23 on a steamy Phnom Penh morning and I’m running late.

00:12

Campbell boards train

Fortunately, the train I’m catching has trouble going faster than walking pace.

00:21

On board train

Music

00:25

CAMPBELL: This is the only passenger train between the capital and Cambodia’s second city, Battambang. Even when it gets some speed up, the 300 kilometre journey takes more than 15 hours -- assuming the train doesn’t break down or get derailed.

00:31

Cambodia once had a famous train service. The French colonialists built a network of steam engines pulling elegant carriages around the country. But the Khmer Rouge banned ordinary people from using them. Decades on, the Cambodian government has revived the skeleton of a service.

00:56

Hole in floor/People on roof

There’s unintended air cooling from the floor. And on some days, the only place you can get a seat is on the roof.

01:16

Today a few rickety antique trains is all that’s left of the once grand tradition. But in frustration, ordinary people have stepped in where the government’s failed to tread, building up their own train network out of spare parts, ingenuity, and lashings of bamboo.

01:26

Norry on track

It’s 3.15 in Battambang and the Moon Express is right on schedule.

01:49

Moon with passengers

Moon is the nickname of the driver, Sok Phas (pronounced Sok Pro). His train is little more than a bamboo slab on wheels. Called a “norry”, from the French word for lorry, it’s the transport of choice for thousands of village commuters.

01:58

Moon: People like these because they’re fast and on time

02:18

and there are only four passenger trains per month and they’re not regular.

02:25

Norry motor

And people don’t like the trains because they get derailed and it delays their trip. 8

02:34

CAMPBELL: Moon is one of hundreds of norry drivers who take paying passengers anywhere the track runs.

02:42

Making a norry

Music

02:48

CAMPBELL: It’s the sheer simplicity of the norry that’s made it so popular. You simply weld together some wheels and stick on a home-made flatbed. Villagers began building them in the late ‘70s as the Khmer Rouge retreated. The first models were hand cars propelled by levers. But when the UN administration came in the early ‘90s it provided small motors, and a rail boom was born.

02:53

Loading up the norry

Moon: Mostly they’re used for coming to buy things, for shopping.

03:24

Moon

Some people use them to travel long distances as well. For example, from the mountains to here there are not many roads, so they use norries.

03:30

Passengers lift norry

CAMPBELL: There are now so many norries there’s an etiquette for who has right of way. The one that’s not moving has to be lifted off for the one that is. To change direction, you simply turn it round the other way.

03:47

Freight train on track

Villager: The train’s coming, the train’s coming.

04:00

CAMPBELL: Oh god, the train’s coming.

04:04

CAMPBELL: And of course, you have to keep an ear out for the occasional oncoming freight train.

04:07

CAMPBELL: What a dangerous job.

04:10

Music

04:12

Norry takes off loaded with children

CAMPBELL: A quick check of the wooden foot brake and it’s ready to go.

04:29

Music

04:33

CAMPBELL: We headed off for a test drive with Moon, his five-year-old son and a dozen or so hangers on. Not that there was anywhere to hang on.

04:46

Music

04:54

Norry builders

CAMPBELL: Not far up the track we came to the Detroit of bamboo railways -- a village geared around mass producing norries.

05:15

Sang Ren building norries

Twenty-one-year-old Sang Ren leads a team of 10 who can turn out a complete hand car in just four days, using spare parts from abandoned tanks. He doesn’t just dream of building bigger and better norries -- Sang Ren likes to pimp the ride.

05:31

Sang Ren

Sang Ren: I want to make them more decorative and more beautiful, to get more tourists to use the norries.

05:50

View from norry

CAMPBELL: In a country that spent so long going backwards, at least some things are going full steam ahead.

06:02

Credits:

Reporter: Eric Campbell

Camera: David Leland

Editor: Bryan Milliss

Research: Anna Bracks

Producer: Marianne Leitch

06:10

06:15