Da Lat–Thap Cham Railway

The Da Lat–Thap Cham Railway (Vietnamese: Đường sắt Tháp Chàm-Đà Lạt) or Da Lat-Phan Rang Railway (Vietnamese: Đường sắt Phan Rang-Đà Lạt) was an 84 km (52 mi) rack railway connecting the city of Da Lat to the main North–South Railway at Tháp Chàm in Ninh Thuận Province. It was established by the French administration of Indochina in 1932 after thirty years of construction in phases, beginning in 1903. The first section, running 41 km (25 mi) from Tháp Chàm to Sông Pha, opened in 1919, and the second section, running 43 km (27 mi) from Song Pha to Da Lat, opened in 1932. Due to the mountainous terrain, the Sông Pha–Da Lat section used rack rails in three sections, and included five tunnels. The Da Lat–Tháp Chàm railway is occasionally referred to as a Crémaillère railway, referring to the French word for the rack used on its rails.

Abandoned during the Vietnam War, the line was gradually dismantled after the North Vietnamese victory in 1975, its infrastructure being used to repair the heavily damaged North–South Railway line. In the 1990s, a 7 km (4.3 mi) section of the line between Da Lat Railway Station and the nearby village of Trại Mát was restored and returned to active use as a tourist attraction; it remains active as of 2010. Restored railway cars now carry the name "Dalat Plateau Rail Road", although this name was not used when the entire line was in use. A proposed renewal project, backed by provincial and local governments, aims to restore the entire Đà Lạt–Tháp Chàm railway to handle both passenger and cargo transportation.

The Da Lat–Thap Cham Railway was an adaptation of plans devised by Paul Doumer during his tenure as Governor-General of French Indochina from 1897 to 1902. Approved by the French administration in 1898, Doumer's ambitious plans included several railway lines, including the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway connecting the coastal town of Haiphong to the city of Kunming in the Chinese province of Yunnan, and the North–South Railway connecting Hanoi and Saigon. Doumer's original plans called for several more branch lines to connect different parts of Indochina, including a link from Quy Nhơn to Kon Tum in the Central Highlands, along with branch lines leading from the Chinese province of Guangxi to Savannakhet in Laos, and from Saigon to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. None of these other lines were ever implemented in their entirety, although the Hanoi–Dong Dang line later allowed for rail connections to Guangxi, and the first 17 km (11 mi) of the Tan Ap—Thakhek line into Laos were built before construction was abandoned. Doumer's plans were adapted, however, to provide a railway link connecting Da Lat and Tháp Chàm in Ninh Thuận Province, at a cost of 200 million francs.

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