The oldest and most beautiful railway station in Indochina has become very dirty and run down as residents have been allowed to encroach on its premises.

A woman about to cross the railway from Da Lat Station on one of the four paths created by the residents.

Built in the Anglo-Norman style, the 71-year-old station in Da Lat, the only one of its kind in Vietnam to be recognized as a national heritage site in 2001, received almost 16,300 foreign visitors last year and more than 6,700 this first quarter.

But the site is in such bad shape that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has had to earmark VND500 million (US$28,100) this year to restore the site. The area is overgrown with weeds, overloaded with mud and garbage, and the main station has developed cracks on the roof and platform.

Residents of the central highlands city have put up stores and houses on the station grounds since 1993, and these have been approved by the authorities later.

The Da Lat People’s Committee has granted land use titles to some of the 16 families that are living on almost 0.45 hectares of the station ground, parts of which have changed hands, says station director Ngo Minh Chau.

“The houses turn their back on the main station so it receives all garbage the residents discharge.”

The Da Lat railway administration has also allotted more than 0.2 hectares to railway officials for building temporary houses, Chau said.

The houses are temporary because the Lam Dong provincial administration stepped in just in time to ban the city from granting any more land use titles.

It also asked the city to review cases that have been granted the titles, without instructions on further action to be taken in such cases.

The Da Lat railway station was designed and built by the French from 1935 to 1938 to carry passengers to and from Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh City.

The station became a non-functional tourist destination in 1986 when the Vietnam Railway Corporation had its rails and ties taken to improve the north-south Thong Nhat Railway.

Now the residents have created four paths crossing the rails in the station.

Chau said station officials have not figured out an effective solution for this development.

They were already opposed by the residents in 2000 when they banned cars and trucks from parking in the station or running through it, except in an emergency.

“The residents lodged complaints everywhere, demanding that we create the most convenient means for them to travel,” he said.

VietNamNet/TN