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Da Lat–Thap Cham Railway

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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 Vietnamese city of Da Lat to the main North–South railway at Tháp Chàm in Ninh Thuận Province. It was establishe

d 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...

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