Southeast Asia Railways Report (2025)

This is the 2025 Future Southeast Asia report for railways in Southeast Asia. This report is for Premium subscribers.

I keep track of every railway project planned and under construction in Southeast Asia, and this report is a summary of every active project.

This report doesn’t cover urban rail transit, which is covered in a separate annual report.

🇧🇳 Brunei

Brunei has no railway, but a company from Brunei has proposed to build one of the most ambitious railway projects in Southeast Asia. Brunergy Utama proposed the Trans-Borneo high-speed railway in March 2024, which was news to the governments of the three countries in Borneo.

The website went offline shortly after the initial announcement, so it seemed like another fantasy proposal going nowhere.

The website is now back online, and all three governments are on board with studying the feasibility of the project.

Brunei would benefit from being one of the main hubs of the railway. Bukit Panggal (the proposed station for Brunei) would be the interchange for the two proposed lines.

🇰🇭 Cambodia

Cambodia plans to upgrade the current railway network and build new lines, though it hasn’t been a meaningful year of progress on new railways. Cambodia is maintaining the current network until new lines can be built.

There was talk of railways when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Cambodia in April 2025, but this seemed more like something that leaders say when they are together to sound like they are doing something. It doesn’t help that the local media in Cambodia neglects to ask what exactly is planned. For example, there was talk of a potential “railway link connecting Cambodia directly to China“.

This would have to go either via Thailand and Laos, or another line via Southern Laos. Either way, a direct railway would be contingent on Cambodia’s neighbouring countries developing railways as well. It’s even more annoying when the media refer to a high-speed railway project linking Cambodia and China without even stopping to think how that would work. It is impossible to build a high-speed railway to China because the Laos-China railway has a top speed of 160 km/h (semi-high-speed), and any future train going from Cambodia to China would have to use this line.

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