Burma Railway Co, of Rangoon
1877 Opening of the Rangoon and Irrawaddy Valley State Railway
1884 Opening of the Rangoon and Sittang Valley State Railway
1892 Opening of the Mu Valley State Railway
1896 Before the completion of the line to Myitkyina, the rail companies were combined into the publicly owned Burma Railway Co.
Between 1898 and 1905, another 278 miles of railway was built. A 110-mile branch line from the Rangoon-Pyay railroad connected Bassein in the Irrawaddy delta to Rangoon, and the Mandalay-Hsipaw-Lashio railway ran 117 miles (188 km) through the Shan Hills (nearly to the border with China).The latter railway included the Gokteik viaduct, a 2,260-foot-long, 320-foot-high viaduct across the Gokteik gorge near Nawnghkio. When it was built, it was the longest such viaduct in the world. The track rises in a continuous 1:40 gradient, and the viaduct (designed by Alexander Rendel and Sons and built by the Pennsylvania Steel Company) was considered an engineering marvel at the time.
The Mandalay-Lashio railway was planned to extend to Kunlong (on the border) and into China's Yunnan province, but the plan was abandoned because of the difficult terrain.
In 1907, a line opened connecting Pegu and Moulmein (the capital of British Burma before the Second Anglo-Burmese War). The line ran to Martaban, on the Gulf of Martaban at the mouth of the Salween River, and passengers had to take a ferry to Moulmein. Until the Thanlwin Bridge opened in 2006, it was impossible to travel from Rangoon to Moulmein by rail. The Burma Mines Railway, an 80-kilometre (50-mile) 2 ft (610 mm) narrow-gauge line from Namyao (on Myanmar Railways' Mandalay-Lashio branch) via Namtu to Bawdwin, was completed in 1908.
1910 Total mileage is 1,240 miles. Officers in India: John Willcocks, Agent (Rangoon); W. Kendall, Secretary; J. M. A. Despeissis, Superintendent of Way and Works (Rangoon); L. P. Johnson, Locomotive Superintendent (Inseim); H. B. Huddleston, Traffic Manager (Rangoon).[1]
1918 Total mileage is 1,392 miles. Officers in India: H. B. Huddleston (Rangoon), Agent; W. Kendall, Secretary; B. Stapleton, Chief Engineer; J. R. Phillips, Locomotive Superintendent; Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, Consulting Engineers.[2]
After the First World War, a line was built between Moulmein and Ye at the northern end of the Mergui Archipelago. Burma's last major rail line, from Thazi on the Rangoon-Mandalay line to Kalaw (a hill station in the southern Shan State) was built between 1914 and 1918.[4] In 1928, the Burma Railway Company was dissolved; the railways were brought directly under government operation and renamed Burma Railways. Around this time, they began to lose money because of competition from road transport. With return on capital declining, Burma Railways became the country's single largest debt item when the financial separation of India and Burma took place in 1937. The company's coal and rolling stock were imported from India or Britain.