Rangoon Town Reclamation Light Railways
Rangoon Town Reclamation Light Railways
The 'Town Reclamation Project' for Rangoon was a major land reclamation scheme, given assent by the Government of India on 23 Aug 1892. It was first planned to reclaim the eastern side of the town with the work being carried out by the Municipal Engineer. A railway was built for the conveyance of earth that was used in the reclamation and was known as the ‘Earth Railway’.
Earth Railway
The metre gauge(MG) railway ran from Boundary Road to the Necropolis and crossed the Burma Railway (BR) with level crossing gates operated by the Municipality. The line opened in 1894 using a second-hand locomotive from BR and 30 tipping wagons. Two new locomotives with 50 larger tipping wagons, and twenty-four hour operation enabled nearly 290,000 tons of earth to be carried on 2,350 trips in the year 1894-95. By 1895-96 temporary lines were laid as required and included the Monkey Point extension [1].
Conservation Railway
In 1896-97 the Municipality decided to use the railway for the disposal of the town’s rubbish and the line was altered between Stockade Road and Tamwe to accommodate the Rangoon Municipality Conservation Railway See separate page
Quarry Railways
By 1908-09 the ‘Earth Railway’ was continuing to work as before but extended to include two quarries :-
Other quarries were developed:-
- ‘Mayangyoung Quarries’ at Mokalpin, where a quarry was operated by a Mr S P Das for the supply of 400,000 cubic feet (11,300 cu metres) of stone for road metalling for town roads. A light railway was laid between the quarries and the Burma Railway(BR) Pagu-Moulmein line. The gauge and motive power of the line are unknown [2].
- ‘Zingyaik Quarries’ In 1911 quarries were opened at this site by the 'Rangoon Town Reclamation Project'. A 2ft/610mm narrow gauge(NG) line was laid to convey the stone to Rangoon, they ceased operations in 1912. The quarry was taken over by the 'Rangoon Port Commissioner' in 1912-13 for the extraction of stone for river training purposes, it is assumed that thr railway was taken over. It is unknown if any locomotives were used on this line [3].
Later Developments
By 1909-10 the eastern section of the railway was chiefly occupied with finishing the reclaiming of Hooper’s Yard for the Rangoon Port Commissioner and raising the land between Bulloch Brothers Mill and Monkey Point Battery for the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation. This was completed in March 1911 as there was no more land to be reclaimed in the area [1] . In the western section the main work was the finishing the Lanmadaw Canal and raising of Keighley Street and Phoongyi Street followed by reclamation at end the Timber Depot in the Sanchaung Section for the building of a sewerage works and its beds, completed in 1911 [1]
By 1915-16 the railway was only used at one-third of its capacity due to its policy of only reclaiming government land in order to sell it, very little private work was carried out. In 1920-21 the financial and administrative problems caused the Governent of India to close the project and replaced the organisation with the ‘Rangoon Development Trust’ - see separate page.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 “Industrial Railways and Locomotives of India and South Asia” compiled by Simon Darvill. Published by ‘The Industrial Railway Society’ 2013. ISBN 978 1 901556 82-7. Available at http://irsshop.co.uk/India. Reference: Entry YA17 page ....
- ↑ “Industrial Railways and Locomotives of India and South Asia” compiled by Simon Darvill. Published by ‘The Industrial Railway Society’ 2013. ISBN 978 1 901556 82-7. Available at http://irsshop.co.uk/India. Reference: Entry MO01 page ....
- ↑ “Industrial Railways and Locomotives of India and South Asia” compiled by Simon Darvill. Published by ‘The Industrial Railway Society’ 2013. ISBN 978 1 901556 82-7. Available at http://irsshop.co.uk/India. Reference: Entry MO02 page ....