This is a somewhat new scenario in Phnom Penh. Most people have never seen a moving train in Cambodia. I have been here eighteen years and this is the third time I have seen a train. The tracks from 80 years ago were not maintained and didn’t even reach their destinations. Up until this year, there was one train a day in each direction to Sihanoukville, the port in the south. The 135 miles took 12 hours.
Now there is a push to get the tracks going all the way to Thailand and a month ago, a commuter train was set up to run from the airport every thirty minutes. That is the train above.
They haven’t quite got the hang of it yet. The gates are manually operated and note that the operator is raising the gate as soon as the engine arrives, I guess figuring they don’t need the gate down because no one can drive through the train?