Little-known images of Gia Lam Railway Factory

Gia Lam Railway Factory is an important railway project built by the French in Vietnam in the early 20th century. It was originally built as a mechanical warehouse where locomotives were maintained and repaired.

In 1970, the factory was rebuilt with funds provided by the Polish government to Vietnam. The infrastructure system and workshops were invested in synchronously, designed according to the characteristics of the railway to meet the maximum capacity of building nearly 1,200 new carriages, repairing more than 120 locomotives and 600 carriages/year.

A workshop for repairing and building new locomotives and carriages with a specially designed roof, with a glass system to let in light; along with a system of overhead cranes that can lift hundreds of tons.

Over the past two centuries, the factory has seen many ups and downs. During its heyday, it employed thousands of workers and was considered a source of pride to be present there.

Train wheel parts await completion in a workshop.

Connecting the workshops in the factory is a system of both 1.435m and 1m gauge rails and a roller bridge. The locomotive and wagons will be pulled from the workshop onto the roller bridge, then the roller bridge is controlled to the correct rail position to bring the locomotive and wagons into the workshop to be pulled over.

Workshop area for finishing train car bodies.

The factory campus is more than 20.3 hectares wide, including nearly 5km of railway leading to the factories, connecting directly to Gia Lam station and connecting to the national railway system, 6 production workshops and operating areas, material warehouses, rest houses between shifts, industrial wastewater treatment system, 10 power stations, internal traffic roads, large regulating lake combined with fire fighting services, green campus, sports field...

Currently, Gia Lam Railway Factory has become the highlight of the Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2023 with the factory and locomotives becoming an art space for exhibitions and displays... attracting a large number of visitors.

Steam locomotive numbered 141-179 (Tu Luc locomotive) is one of three steam locomotives of the Mikado series that were researched, designed and manufactured by engineers of Gia Lam Railway Factory since 1964, with the support of Chinese locomotive engineers. This type of locomotive is designed to run on 1,000mm gauge rails. A total of about 50 locomotives of this type were produced, mainly used to transport goods in the North.

Visitors tour the factory area inside the factory.

A water tower dozens of meters high was built in 1977-1978 inside the Gia Lam Railway Factory. Water from the well will be pumped to the upper tank, then distributed to serve the factory's production and the daily life of people in the area.

During construction, the water tank was precast and then gradually lifted up and placed on the tower using a hand winch. The slogans are still clearly printed on the bottom of the water tank even after decades.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/xa-hoi/nhung-hinh-anh-it-biet-ve-nha-may-xe-lua-gia-lam-20231118181821131.htm