Railways in Vietnam - Part 2

In an earlier post Railways in Vietnam - Part 1 I described the observations I made on my way from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi.

On Tuesday 5th February 2013, I travelled from Hanoi to Halong Bay by car. About 7 km outside the city, a single track rail line appeared on our right and stayed with us for a while. We came to a passing loop which was signalled as all the others I’d seen (see Part 1). I didn’t spot a warning signal but got a photo of the usual 2-aspect plus 2-aspect plus subsidiary at the loop points for trains heading away from Hanoi. On the double track section, there were two signals side-by-side for trains towards Hanoi – a high-level 2-aspect on the nearer line, a 2-aspect low-level signal on the further. At the far end of the passing loops, there was a 2-aspect low-level for trains from Hanoi, then the usual usual 2-aspect plus 2-aspect plus subsidiary for trains towards Hanoi. This time, I caught the warning signal – the lower aspect was displaying yellow. I lost sight of this railway line as we negotiated one of the clover-leaf road junctions.

A little further on I noticed a new embankment under construction on the right, followed by a forest of rebar standing vertically, presumably the start of a series of bridge piers. Then there was more embankment work and a long bridge formed of a series of through trusses crossing a wide river but the bridge still connected nowhere to nowhere. The dimensions confirmed that this was for a new railway.

After a few more kilometres, a railway approached from our left and I could hardly believe my eyes – there was a semaphore lower quadrant distant signal! I then looked out for a home signal and just caught a tubular post signal with a semaphore lower quadrant ‘stop’ arm at the top of the post sticking out horizontally to the left of the post in a conventional ‘stop’ position. Lower down the post, there was a second ‘stop’ arm, this time hanging vertically down. Predictably, there was a second similar signal at the other end of the loop. I didn’t see any ‘starting’ signals.

On Thursday 7th February 2013, I travelled back to Hanoi using the same road as a couple of days earlier and I was able to take a few more pictures, mainly of the semaphore signals. But I also saw a morning train from Hanoi on the move.

We passed the morning train from Hanoi on a stretch where there are numerous properties on the far side of the railway from the main road, resulting in accommodation crossings every few metres. The locomotive was sounding its horn repeatedly in warning.



References

Vietnam Railways (Wikipedia).
David Gurnett's 'Railways in Vietnam'.

My pictures

Railways in Vietnam.

[Revised 28-Feb-2013]