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Home / Vietnam - The Reunification Express: Tough Trains Series

Vietnam - The Reunification Express: Tough Trains Series

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This title is a part of the series Tough Trains Series

 
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Catalogue Number:  555077
Producer:  Pilot Productions
Producers:  Dupenois, Lisa
Directors:  Dupenois, Lisa
Producing Agencies:  Pilot Film and TV Productions
Subject:  Business Studies, Canadian World Studies, Documentary, Economics, History, Social Sciences, Social Studies, Travel, World History
Language:  English
Grade Level:  9 - 12, Post Secondary, Adult
Country Of Origin:  United Kingdom
Copyright Year:  2014
Running Time:  48:23


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The Vietnamese railway network has a checkered history. Today it crosses roads, zips through slums and is poorly maintained. Accidents are rife. Each year the number of people dying in railway accidents accounts for about 2% of all deaths in the country – that’s 100 times worse than in India.

Established under French Colonial rule at the turn of the twentieth century, and completed nearly forty years later in 1936, Vietnam’s Railways have been plagued by poor infrastructure over the entirety of their lifetime. Over the course of the last century, the railway, as a vital economic resource, has found itself at the heart of many international conflicts, sustaining major damage in the process.

However, when the fighting escalated during the Vietnam War in the 1950s, the Vietnamese needed fresh supplies from their communist allies in China and the Soviet Union. With China and Vietnam using different gauges, everything needed to be unloaded from Chinese trains and re-loaded on Vietnamese ones. It was time to modify the system. Vietnam converted their track to match China.


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