From pride to ruin: how a once thriving train factory in Vietnam has faded from glory
Opened in 1905, Gia Lam was the first train factory in the then French territory, which spanned modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
Built by the French to fix trains for their quickly developing Vietnamese colony, the Gia Lam factory later churned out weapons to fuel the country’s independence fight, and then survived the onslaught of American bombers during the war.
But the storied Hanoi plant is now in decline, a victim of the rising consumer power of Vietnam’s middle classes as passengers turn from trains to planes.
“In the past, I was proud to work here because this factory was the biggest in Indochina,” repairman Au Duy Hien said.
Opened in 1905, Gia Lam was the first train factory in the then French territory, which spanned modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Mechanics used the base to fix and then assemble the engines and carriages that served the region’s rapid push towards industrialisation.
It was taken over by the Vietnamese in the 1940s, expanding production to make bazookas and grenades for revolutionaries fighting the country’s colonial rulers, who were finally thrown out in 1954. It continued to make weapons during the Vietnam War even as it was bombed by US planes targeting Communist-backed revolutionaries in the country’s north.
