Southeast Asia Railways Report (2024)

Trans-Borneo high-speed railway, a year of high-speed rail in Java, the unlikely city with two international railway stations, Thailand’s mixed-gauge expansion continues, and Vietnam’s ambitious North-South high-speed railway plan.

This is the annual Future Southeast Asia subscriber report for railways in Southeast Asia. I keep track of every railway project that is planned and under construction in Southeast Asia, and this report is a summary of all of the projects in every country.

Note that this doesn’t include urban rail transit, which will be in a separate annual report. I have different annual reports staggered over the year, so this is one year since my last report, not a calendar year report.

🇧🇳 Brunei

This report is listed in country order, so we begin with Brunei. It’s not often that Brunei gets a mention about railways, but Brunei is leading this report with the most outrageous railway proposal of the last year.

In March 2024, a Brunei company announced a Trans-Borneo high-speed railway that will connect Brunei, Sarawak and Sabah in Malaysia, and Kalimantan in Indonesia.

The proposed Trans-Borneo Railway connects the three nations of Borneo.

The 1,620 km railway would be longer than the proposed Vietnam high-speed railway (see Vietnam section). Like Vietnam, the Brunei HSR is proposed to travel at over 300 km/h, though the island of Borneo has a population of about 24 million compared to 100 million in Vietnam.

After the announcement was made, the Brunei government said there had been no discussions at the government level, and Sabah, Sarawak and Indonesia said they didn’t know about it.

The railway website soon went offline (I regret not caching it in the Web Archive), so the story might have ended there. The idea, though, has persisted, and now Malaysia is saying that a feasibility study will begin in November 2024.

This is not the first time that some form of Trans-Borneo railway has been proposed. Some plans date back to 2000, and you can view all the proposals on the Trans-Borneo railway page.

🇰🇭 Cambodia

Cambodia has been proposing to upgrade the national railways for years. There was a big announcement in April about upgrading the railways, though it was light on specifics.

These announcements usually have a commencement or completion date attached to them, but these statements become meaningless when there is a history of similar dated announcements. This is why I keep news archives of major announcements.

The most baffling announcement of the year was the high-speed railway link with Laos. The announcement mentions linking the Laos-China Railway to Cambodia by high-speed railway, even though the Laos-China Railway is not a high-speed railway. Putting aside their confusion about operating systems, there was no mention of how this would work. Is it a railway through Southern Laos connecting Northeast Cambodia, or is it via Thailand, which would use existing Thailand railway infrastructure? The Khmer Times just publishes whatever the government says, but it would be helpful if they spent 5 minutes asking themselves how this would work.

In the most recent update, Prime Minister Hun Manet urged the upgrading of the railways, but there were no concrete plans in this statement.

The statement also included threats to withdraw Royal Railway’s license to operate the railway (a threat that has been made previously). Royal Railways are doing what they can with a limited budget on an old railway. What is needed is for the railways to be completely rebuilt.

Funan-Techo Canal

Cambodia has been fixated on building the Funan-Techo Canal, so this expensive project could drain railway funds for years to come.

This map shows the route of the canal and the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville railway. 

Map by EOBKR via Wikimedia Commons.

They would have been better off spending the canal money on building a new double-tracked standard-gauge railway from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. That would benefit passenger and freight travel.

Accidents

The railway has been plagued by derailments and level-crossing accidents.

JR Hokkaido trains

A spot of bright news on the horizon is the impending introduction of the refurbished trains from JR Hokkaido (though they are not high-speed).

These trains have been undergoing test runs, so I hope to review them by the end of the year.

🇮🇩 Indonesia

After the euphoria of launching one of the fastest trains in the world, it has been a quiet year for railway development in Indonesia.

Jakarta – Bandung High-Speed Railway

The Jakarta – Bandung High-Speed Railway celebrated its first anniversary on October 2, but construction debt hangs over the project.

Jakarta – Surabaya High-Speed Railway

The most logical next project is extending the Jakarta – Bandung High-Speed Railway to Surabaya. A feasibility study for the Surabaya HSR extension is due by the end of 2024.

I rode the Jakarta-Bandung HSR this year, and it’s an amazing achievement. The main problem is that the route is too short (143 km), so it would make sense to extend the line across the island to Surabaya. Over 150 million people live on the island of Java, so if there was anywhere that was suitable for high-speed rail, it’s Java. 

Trans-Bali Railway

Bali is planning to build a subway system, so I will be featuring that in the urban railways report. I visited the transport department in Bali this year, and they still have a Trans-Bali Railway on the drawing board. This is a proposal to build a railway around the island. A map of this is on the Bali railway page.

Kalimantan

Apart from the aforementioned Trans-Borneo Railway, there has been talk of a railway from Nusantara (the new capital of Indonesia) to Balikpapan (the closest major city).

Trans-Sulawesi Railway

I rode the first section of the Trans-Sulawesi Railway this year from Makassar. After the line was opened in 2023, news on this line has gone silent.

Trans-Sumatra Railway

I’ve been to Sumatra twice in the last two years to ride different sections of the railways, and my next trip will be to the fragmented railways of West Sumatra.

Considering that Sumatra is the second most populous island in Indonesia (over 60 million people), it’s concerning that there hasn’t been any progress on the Trans-Sumatra project. I have news alerts set up for “Trans-Sumatra Railway”, but the news alerts only return results for the Trans Sumatra Toll Road.

🇱🇦 Laos

Laos-China Railway

The Laos-China Railway is proving to be a success in terms of passenger and freight numbers. The railway has surpassed handling 10 million tonnes of goods since it first opened, and over 222,000 cross-border passengers. How much pressure the railway debt has put on the government remains a mystery.

Vientiane Khamsavath Station

The latest addition to the Laos railway network is the extension of the line from Thanaleng to Vientiane Khamsavath Station. The State Railway of Thailand are now operating overnight trains from Bangkok to Vientiane, and shuttles from Udon Thani to Vientiane.

This new rail line and station now gives Vientiane the distinction of being the only city in Southeast Asia to have two international railway stations (Vientiane Station for Kunming and Khamsavath for Thailand).

Vientiane – Vung Ang Railway

After a flurry of announcements in 2023, the Vientiane – Vung Ang Railway has gone quiet. South Korea have announced that it is interested in investing in the project.

🇲🇾 Malaysia

It wasn’t an exciting year for rail in Malaysia, but at least they are on track with the largest new rail project in Southeast Asia.

East Coast Rail Link

The East Coast Rail Link has been making the news throughout the year with positive updates on its progress. An update in July said that the overall progress of the project is at 70.13% and that it will be operational from January 2027.

Gemas-Johor Bahru Electrified Double Track (EDT) project

The Gemas-Johor Bahru Electrified Double Track project was 97% complete in June. The project is expected to be completed by 2025, and new trains have been ordered to service the route from KL to JB.

Knowing that this line is going to be upgraded soon(ish), I took a ride on the diesel service from Gemas to Johor Bahru this year. I wrote about it for a historical archive.

Kuala Lumpur – Singapore High-Speed Railway

The KL-Singapore HSR saga continues, with the most recent update saying that a decision on the project will be made by the end of the fourth quarter.

Selangor Rail Line

The Selangor Rail Line is a proposed railway in the state of Selangor. The proposed line will run along the North Selangor coast from Klang to Sabak (near the boundary of Perak state).

 🇲🇲 Myanmar

Myanmar is still a black hole of information while the civil war rages.  There was an update about the junta seeking a loan for the Muse-Mandalay railroad project.

On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar by Clare Hammond was released this year, and it was good to see this book getting reviewed by so many major news outlets.

🇵🇭 Philippines

In his third State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Philippines was “in the midst of a railway renaissance,” though it might have been more apt to say that Manila was in the midst of a railway renaissance. Like Java-centric Indonesia, the Philippines has a Manila-centric problem. Metro Railways of Manila will be in the annual urban railway report.

Philippines’ 30-year railway master plan

The Philippines’ 30-year railway master plan, prepared with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), has been delayed until 2026.

North–South Commuter Railway

The North-South Commuter Railway is primarily an urban railway, but it will also serve as a connecting railway for the future South and North long-haul lines.

One of the biggest problems hindering NSCR completion is right-of-way issues (a problem in every big city in Southeast Asia).

PNR states that the North-South Commuter Railway may commence partial operations in 2026.

PNR South Long Haul

The PNR South Long Haul (PNR Bicol) is a project to reconstruct the railway in Southern Luzon. The line will be 565 km in length with 35 stations, and passenger trains will travel at a top speed of 160 km/h.

This project has lost momentum after funding from China was ruled out.

Mindanao Railway

The Mindanao Railway is another project that has been affected by the ruling out of loans from China. 

Panay Railway

Contracts for a feasibility study of the Panay Railway were set to be bid out this year.

Eastern Visayas Railway

The Panay news update also mentioned a feasibility study for a railway between the islands of Samar and Leyte.

🇸🇬 Singapore

Kuala Lumpur – Singapore High-Speed Railway

While Singapore waits for Malaysia to decide about the Singapore-KL high-speed railway, the new PM of Singapore has confirmed Singapore’s commitment to the project.

🇹🇭 Thailand

Bangkok – Nong Khai High-Speed Railway (Thai-China Railway)

The Bangkok – Nong Khai high-speed railway (the Thai-China High-Speed Railway) has been delayed again. Last year’s report said that the Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima section would be ready by 2026. The latest updates now say that the first stage will be ready by 2028.

Double-tracking project

Double-tracking of the single-track metre-gauge railway continues across the network.

The 421 km Southern dual-track route from Nakhon Pathom to Chumphon opened to passengers in August.

Double-tracking of the Khon Kaen-Nong Khai section of the Northeast Line is also being prepared. This is in the same corridor that the double-tracked high-speed railway is being built, so this is my opportunity to remind you of the mixed-gauge madness of Thailand’s railways.

The absurdity of the double-tracking of the metre-gauge railway is also evident on the Northern Line to Chiang Mai. One of the sections is a 19 km elevated railway.

Elevated railway in Lopburi.

This is in the same corridor as the proposed Bangkok-Chiang Mai high-speed railway. The HSR project has been continually delayed, but it is still on the drawing board. If it does get built, there will be another elevated railway alongside this metre-gauge line. They should have just upgraded the entire Northern Line to a standard-gauge railway.

Don Mueang–Suvarnabhumi–U-Tapao high-speed railway – The 3-airport rail link of Bangkok

This is the other high-speed railway project in Thailand, and it has been delayed again. There have been problems with land clearance and contract issues. Here is the most recent contract update.

There is no point trying to guess when this is going to start, let alone an estimated completion date.

Chiang Rai Railway

The Denchai – Chiang Rai – Chiang Khong Double-Track Railway project was reported as 18.031% complete as of 31 August 2024.

Ban Phai – Nakhon Phanom Railway

If there were an award for the least reported project in Southeast Asia, it might be this one. The Ban Phai – Mahasarakham- Roy Ed – Mukdahan- Nakhon Phanom line forms part of the East-West Economic Corridor Railway that will connect Myanmar to Vietnam. There have been some updates from Thai news sites posted in the Southeast Asia Railways Facebook Group.

This line is being built on a metre gauge, so it won’t be compatible with the proposed Laos and Vietnam sections.

Nakhon Sawan – Mae Sot Railway

The Nakhon Sawan – Mae Sot Railway forms the western half of Thailand’s East-West Economic Corridor Railway. The SRT is expropriating land for the project.

🇻🇳 Vietnam

Vietnam has once again built no new railways, but they have announced one of the most ambitious railway projects in the world.

North-South High-Speed Railway

The North-South High-Speed Railway is a proposal to replace the old metre-gauge North-South Railway that connects Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

This is not a new proposal (it was first proposed in 2005), but there is something different about this year’s announcement. The government has said that this is a highly important and necessary infrastructure work, and has laid out a cost estimate and timeline for construction. I have put all the details on the Vietnam High-Speed Railway page.

It’s a remarkable proposal and one that learns lessons from other big-ticket rail projects in Southeast Asia.

The proposal says that Vietnam will fund the project itself, avoiding a reliance on loans from other countries. The word “debt trap” was mentioned, so they have pre-empted answering one of the biggest fears that the Vietnamese would have of the project (ie, going into debt with China). This would also make it more palatable to use Chinese tech if it is known that Vietnam is not going into debt with China.

After years of consideration, they have also settled on a speed of 350 km/h. This would make the Hanoi – HCMC trip in about 5h 20m (flying is about 2 hours). There would still be a need for flights on that route, but the busy Hanoi-Danang and HCMC-Danang routes would make trains the better option.

The multi-billion-dollar question that hasn’t been answered is who is going to build it. The government is saying that they want the knowledge and technology transferred to them so they can do it themselves. Usually, such projects come with conditions. For example, projects funded by JICA require Japanese companies to be involved in the construction.

China, Japan, South Korea, and France have expressed their interest in the project, so I am looking forward to seeing how this is going to work out.

Building the railway is a huge ask considering that the country hasn’t been able to build any new railways in the modern era, but at least this is a visionary proposal. This is something that Thailand should have aimed for. Their 20-year plan should have been to move everything to the standard gauge with high-speed railways on the most important routes. Instead, they are stuck with updating the old metre-gauge lines that in the end won’t move passengers away from air travel.

Lao Cai-Hanoi-Hai Phong Railway

In addition to the North-South Line, Vietnam is planning to upgrade the Lao Cai-Hanoi-Hai Phong Railway. This is another project that has been years in the making, and like the HSR, there seems to be more urgency this year.

The current line is a single-tracked metre-gauge railway. The plan is to rebuild it as a standard-gauge double-track electric railway, matching the railway that runs from Kunming to the Vietnam border. This will be offered to Chinese companies to build, as it is connected to the Chinese railway system.

This 7.2 billion USD railway project is now ready for planning appraisal.

Hai Phong – Ha Long – Mong Cai Railway

There was previously an attempt to rebuild the Hanoi-Ha Long railway, but that was abandoned. Vietnam is now going with the plan to connect Ha Long to Haiphong, which would make more sense in terms of passenger catchment. The Lao Cai-Hanoi-Hai Phong Railway now includes Ha Long on the line.

The next question will be whether they extend the line to Mong Cai, so it can connect to the Chinese railway at Dongxing.

Ho Chi Minh City – Can Tho Railway

With all the news about the high-speed railway, the Mekong Delta Railway from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho hasn’t had as much attention. The government was to evaluate a pre-feasibility study report in February.

This project has also been planned for years, so if you are new to following railway development in Vietnam, it is best not to get your hopes up when dates are mentioned.

The Can Tho Railway is sometimes referred to as a high-speed project, though I don’t know if this is like Cambodia, where they are getting their speeds mixed up. This report says it is high-speed with a speed of up to 190 km/h (which would still be great).

There haven’t been any meaningful recent updates on the Can Tho Railway, though the Deputy Prime Minister suggested extending the high-speed railway to the southernmost province of Ca Mau. That would mean the high-speed railway would be extended to Can Tho.

There are some more announcements for the high-speed railway due this month, so this project will be getting frequent updates at Future Southeast Asia. I will be posting more about Vietnam railways when the information is available.