A proposal to build an urban railway connecting the Nha Trang city centre to the high-speed railway station, with an extension to Cam Ranh International Airport.
The proposed high-speed railway from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City will be built on a new alignment from the current North-South Railway. This will make the line shorter, and more straight sections will enable the train to operate at the top speed of 350 km/h for longer periods.
As part of the straightening process, most of the stations will be further out of the city centre than the current stations. The current Nha Trang Station is about 3 km from the beachfront, while the proposed high-speed station in Dien Khanh will be about 14 km from the beachfront.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are planning to build metro lines to connect their high-speed stations to the city centre. Should Nha Trang also build a connecting railway?
To visualise this, I’ve made a map of what a Nha Trang urban railway would look like, and as a bonus I’ve turned it into an airport rail link.
[Nha Trang HSR Airport Railway Concept Map (view full size).]
Nha Trang HSR Airport Railway proposal
Here are the approximate locations of the stations on Google Maps. I’ve included the current North-South railway stations in Khanh Hoa province, and the future high-speed railway stations in Khanh Hoa and neighbouring provinces.
[Map of proposed Nha Trang HSR Airport Railway.]
This is an unofficial proposal published at Future Southeast Asia, and here is how it would work.
Section 1: Dien Khanh Station to Nha Trang City
The line from Dien Khanh Station to Nha Trang would be about 14 km if the Nha Trang station is built near the beachfront (where most tourists want to stay).
The line could be built as an elevated railway along Vo Nguyen Giap Road. The line could then follow the route of the North-South Railway to the current Nha Trang Station. This section would be about 11 km.
[Nha Trang Station]
The current North-South Railway will still be used for freight, but the section near Nha Trang Station will be discontinued. Nha Trang Station is one of the most unusual stations on the current North-South Railway. The line diverts off the North-South alignment and heads into the city centre. Instead of reversing out of the station with the engine switched to the other end of the train, there is a loop that goes through Nha Trang to get the train back onto the main North-South Line.
The Nha Trang loop is visible on the satellite map. This view also shows how built-up the urban area is near the station, and why the high-speed railway will need to be built outside the city centre.
[Satellite view of the Nha Trang rail loop.]
The current Nha Trang Station would make a good place to board a transit line to the high-speed railway. Extending the line closer to the beach will be tricker. There are two options to extend the line:
1) Build an elevated railway down Le Thanh Ton with an elevated station near the beachfront.
2) At Nha Trang Station, the line goes underground and follows the path of Le Thanh Ton with an underground station near the beachfront. With the railway tracks at Nha Trang becoming redundant, this area could be used as a work space to transition the aboveground line to a tunnel.
[Nha Trang Station, looking towards the city and the looped section of the railway.]
Section 2: Dien Khanh Station to Can Ranh International Airport
While I was designing this map, I wondered what it would take to build an airport rail link connecting Nha Trang to Cam Ranh International Airport (CXR).
Can Ranh is about 37 km south of the centre of Nha Trang, but this route by road goes via a rocky coastline. Building an airport rail link along the coast would be too difficult and costly.
Building an airport rail link along the same corridor as the current North-South Railway is a longer trip than the coastal route, but if there is a new railway from Nha Trang to Dien Khanh, then it could be worthwhile to build an extension from Dien Khanh to Cam Ranh.
The distance from Dien Khanh to Cam Ranh is about 40 km, and about half of the way could run through the same corridor as the North-South Railway. The old railway will still be used for freight, so the airport link would have to be elevated above the old line.
The with distance of the Dien Khanh to Nha Trang section being 14 km, that makes it a 54 km airport rail link. That’s a long way, but there is an even longer airport rail link in Southeast Asia that proves that it can be done.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) is connected to Kuala Lumpur by the KLIA Ekspres, which is 57 km in length. This train has a commercial top speed of 160 km/h, and the travel time from KL Sentral to KLIA T1 is 28 minutes.
[KUL is one of the easiest airports to get to in SE Asia thanks to the KLIA Ekspres.]
There is also the KLIA Transit which runs on the same line but stops at more stations. The Nha Trang version could have an express line stopping at Nha Trang – Dien Khanh – Cam Ranh, and another line with more stops along the way. The stations could be built to allow express trains to pass through the middle, effectively turning the airport rail link into a commuter railway for Khanh Hoa province.
[KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit.]
Another comparable airport rail link in terms of distance is the Taoyuan Airport MRT in Taipei. This line has a length of 52 km and it has Commuter and Express services.
Future expansion
The Dien Khanh – Nha Trang section could form the backbone of an urban rail network for Khanh Hoa in the future.
Another possible railway addition would be to build a north-south underground line near the beachfront. The north-south line could interchange with the airport line, and there could be a station at the old Nha Trang Airport redevelopment.
[A future Nha Trang that looks like this should have a metro.]
This might seem like an ambitious plan to put a subway in Nha Trang, but Nha Trang has already proposed to build a 4.3-km tunnel along Tran Phu Street on the beachfront.
[Proposed tunnel under Tran Phu Road (image via VnExpress).]
Another option to expand the railway system in Nha Trang/Khanh Hoa would be to operate commuter railways on the current North-South Railway. I have marked the current stations of the North-South Railway on the Google Map.
If the line is only operating freight trains, then there would be more time to operate shorter regional railways that operate within the province. The current railway services are too infrequent and don’t stop at the smaller stations, so a more frequent service could help boost small towns on the line.
Why Nha Trang/Khanh Hoa should build an urban railway
A future centrally-governed city and Asia’s “leading liveable coastal city” will need urban railways
Khanh Hoa province is envisioned to become a centrally-governed city by 2030. This status will elevate Khanh Hoa as a major city of Vietnam, alongside the other centrally-governed cities of Hanoi, Haiphong, Hue, Danang, HCMC, and Can Tho.
Khanh Hoa also plans to become a leading liveable coastal city of Asia. To be considered as a liveable coastal city, Khanh Hoa should include urban and regional railways in its long-term plans.
Competition from other coastal cities
Once the high-speed railway opens, the coastal cities with high-speed stations will become more accessible than ever. While Da Nang and Nha Trang are well served by flights, the train will level the playing field for other coastal cities such as Quy Nhon, Phan Rang–Thap Cham, and Phan Thiet.
This is ultimately good for Vietnam, as coastal cities will need to improve to compete for tourists. For Nha Trang, that will mean making it easier to visit for tourists and more liveable in the long-term for residents.
Competing for the largest new travel market (Saigonese weekenders)
Nha Trang will not only be competing with coastal cities on the high-speed railway, it will be also be competing with Vung Tau and Ho Tram for weekenders from Ho Chi Minh City.
The high-speed railway from Thu Thiem (HCMC) to Dien Khanh is expected to take 71 minutes. This speed will make it faster to go from HCMC to Nha Trang than Vung Tau or Ho Tram. With the high-speed railway, Nha Trang becomes one of the main beach weekend destinations for Saigonese.
Even though Vung Tau and Ho Tram are not on the high-speed railway, there is a plan to build a railway from Bien Hoa to Vung Tau. This could be connected to Ho Chi Minh City and the future Long Thanh International Airport. This would then make it even easier for Saigonese to go to Vung Tau for the weekend instead of Nha Trang. If Ho Tram got organised, they would be lobbying to build a railway extension on the Bien Hoa to Vung Tau railway to the Ho Tram – Binh Chau sea resort route.
Having a connecting railway from Dien Khanh to Nha Trang will be one less point of friction for travel. The reduced travel time will make Nha Trang more enticing than Vung Tau.
Indonesia has shown that feeder trains work
Having feeder trains that connect high-speed stations to the city centre is a sensible idea. Fortunately for Vietnam, this system can be seen operating on the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway.
As with Vietnam, it would have been too difficult to build the high-speed stations close to the city centre in Jakarta and Bandung. Jakarta built the Bekasi Line to connect Central Jakarta to the high-speed station, while Bandung uses the nearby railway line to connect Bandung city centre to Padalarang high-speed station. The length of this feeder train is 14.6 km, and it takes about 20 minutes.
[Feeder train connecting Bandung city centre to Padalarang high-speed station.]
Line 1 of the Hanoi Metro and Line 2 of the HCMC Metro will be feeder lines for the high-speed railway, and Da Nang is talking about building a metro. Will Nha Trang join the club and get its own feeder line for Dien Khanh high-speed station?
Future urban rail transit in cities of Vietnam
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