Myanmar travellers take to the trains as fuel prices rise

Myanmar’s ageing railway stations are bustling with life, crowded with passengers as surging fuel prices due to the Middle East war drive commuters to choose trains over costly planes and cars.On a journey from the country’s largest city Yangon to the capital Naypyidaw, Agence France-Presse journalists sat in air-conditioned carriages full of travellers napping and sharing tea, fried rice and instant noodles.First class adult train tickets cost 19,000 kyats (US$9), while the cheapest bus fares for the route now start at 35,000 kyats.At one point on Thursday the train chugged past a queue of trucks waiting for fuel – the trains themselves run on diesel, with the state railway company maintaining its own stocks.People dozed on station benches or sat on luggage on platforms as they waited for their trains.Passengers wait for their train while sitting on a platform at Naypyidaw station on Thursday. Photo: AFPMyanmar has been consumed by a civil war since 2021, when a military coup swept aside Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government, sparking armed resistance to Junta rule.