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DPA & AGENCIES
Phnom Penh
CAMBODIA'S King Norodom Sihamoni embarked on his first official rail journey on Friday
when the monarch joined the country's prime minister and other dignitaries for a ride on a newly refurbished southern line.
The king and his entourage took the seven-hour journey from the capital of Phnom Penh to the coastal city of Sihanoukville, a line that until earlier this year had been closed for more than a decade.
Passenger service from the capital to the coast ceased in 2002, according to the Phnom Penh Post, and the remaining line from Phnom Penh to Battambang followed suite in 2009.
The king and Queen Mother Monineath Sihanouk, accompanied by Prime Minister Hun Sen and a dozen senior Cabinet members, travelled together on the Southern Line service, which resumed in April this year after a 14-year hiatus. In a posting on Facebook, Hun Sen said one of the aims of the trip is for the king to review the latest developments of the country's railway system.
The 264-kilometre rail journey to Sihanoukville takes around seven hours.
Due to neglect and damage from decades of civil war in Cambodia which lasted until 1998, railways in the country were left in a dilapidated state and all services had been suspended by 2009 for rehabilitation.
Construction on the country's other rail line, Phnom Penh to Poipet via Battambang, is still under way.
