page_title: Kunming–Haiphong railway
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kunming–Haiphong railway / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The bridge across the Nanxi River, between Hekou (China) and Lao Cai (Vietnam) on the Vietnam-Yunnan Railway. 中文: 河口滇越铁路桥
context_page_description: The Yunnan–Haiphong railway is an 855 km railway built by France during 1904–1910, connecting Haiphong, Vietnam, with Kunming, Yunnan province, China. The section within China from Kunming to Hekou is known as the Kunming–Hekou railway, and is 466 km long. The section within Vietnam is 389 km long, and is known as the Hanoi–Lào Cai railway. The railway was built with 1,000 mm gauge due to the mountainous terrain along the route. Currently it is the only main line in China using 1,000 mm metre gauge.
context_section_description: In the 19th century, the French colonial administration worked to develop regular trading networks and an efficient transport infrastructure between Indochina and south-west China. The primary motivation for such an effort was to facilitate export of European goods to China. A railway would also give France access to Yunnan's natural resources, mineral resources and opium, and open up the Chinese market for Indochinese products such as rice, dry fish, wood and coal.
  Before the railway was built, the standard travel time from Haiphong (the closest sea port to most of Yunnan) to Kunming was reckoned by the Western authorities to be 28 days: 16 days by steamer and then a small boat up the Red River to Manhao (425 miles), and then 12 days overland (194 miles).
  The right to build the railway was obtained following China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). At a cost of 95 million francs (€362 million), the railway was among the most ambitious colonial projects undertaken by France, and was put into use on 1 April 1910. The 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) metre gauge section was originally administered in more or less the same way as the Indochinese networks, and if not for a "missing link" through Cambodia (between Saigon and Phnom Penh), it would have been physically possible for through trains to run from Kunming to Singapore, as 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) metre gauge was used in Malaya as well.
  Under pressure from Japan, France closed the line on 16 July 1940 to cut supplies to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the Japanese occupation Japanese National Railways Class 9600 2-8-0 locomotives were shipped to aid their invasion, and after the completion of the "death railway" it was possible for a time to send through traffic to Burma and hence to the Indian 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in) metre gauge network. This is now not possible, as sections of the railway were destroyed during the conflicts since World War II.
  During the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, the railway bridge across the Nanxi River at the
  two countries' border was destroyed, and the trade between China and Vietnam came to a halt for several years.
caption: The Kunming–Haiphong railway crossing the Nanxi River from Lao Cai, Vietnam, (on the right) to Hekou, China, (on the left)
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