The Burma Railway Company
In 1896, before the completion of the line to Myitkyina, the three companies were combined into the Burma Railway Company as a state owned public undertaking. Between 1898 and 1905 another 278 miles of railway was constructed. A 110 branch line from the Rangoon-Pyay railroad connected Bassein in the Irrawaddy delta to Rangoon and the Mandalay - Hsipaw-Lashio railway traversed 117 miles through the Shan Hills almost all the way to the border with China. The latter railroad included the Gokteik viaduct, a 2260 feet long, 320 feet high viaduct across the Gokteik gorge near Nawnghkio. When built, it was the longest such viaduct in the world. The track rises a continuous 1:40 gradient throughout its length and the viaduct, designed by Alexander Rendel & Sons and constructed by the Pennsylvania Steel Company was considered an engineering marvel at that time. The Mandalay-Lashio railway was to extend to Kunlong on the border, and then on to the Yunnan province of China (see Yunnan–Burma Railway) but the plan was abandoned because of the difficult terrain.
In 1907, a line was opened connecting Pegu and Moulmein, the original capital of British Burma (before the Second Anglo-Burmese War). The line went up to Martaban on the Gulf of Martaban at the terminus of the Salween River and passengers had to take a ferry to cross over to Moulmein. (It was not until the Thanlwin Bridge opened in 2006 that it was possible to go from Rangoon to Moulmein by rail.) Sometime after the First World War, a line was constructed between Moulmein and Ye at the northern end of the Mergui Archipelago. Meanwhile, the last major rail line constructed in Burma was between 1914 and 1918 when a line was built from Thazi on the Rangoon-Mandalay line to Kalaw, a hill station in the hills of the Southern Shan State.
In 1928, the Burma Railway Company was dissolved and the railways were brought directly under the government and renamed Burma Railways and, around this time, the railways began to lose money because of competition from road transport. With the return on capital declining, Burma Railways became the single biggest debt item when the financial separation of India and Burma took place in 1937. The coal, the rolling stock, engines, were all imported either from India or from Britain.
Read more about this topic: History Of Rail Transport In Burma
Famous quotes containing the words burma, railway and/or company:
“If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.”
—Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten Of Burma Mountbatten (1900–1979)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. James’s] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)