A Hanoi Railway Passenger Transport Company represen-tative said that all trains had to stop before entering the Hai Van Pass from the north, at which point the smugglers can be seen day or night running from the forest to load logs onto train roofs and any other available surfaces.
Partners then wait at stations at the pass’s southern exit to retrieve the wood and sell it on Lien Chieu black-markets on the outskirts of Da Nang.
A Hai Van Railway Transport Enterprise representative said that any train waiting for other trains to pass would surely become a vehicle for the smugglers as well.
Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director of Hanoi Railway Passenger Transport Company, said the company did not support the loggers and that such haphazardly loaded wood was in fact very dangerous as it could fall off and derail a train at any time.
A representative of Hai Van Railway Transport Enterprise said each train only had a limited number of staff that could not prevent the large bands of illegal loggers that swarmed the train’s 17-20 railway cars.
He said his staffers were often threatened by the loggers any time they tried to intervene.
 “To prevent them from shipping timber onto trains along the Hai Van Pass, deforestation must be stopped,” he said.
Tran Huy Do, head of Nam Hai Van forest management board, admitted the board was responsible to prevent the illegal logging.
But he said with only five rangers, it would be impossible for his board to keep watch on the more than 11,000 hectares of forest it had been deputed to oversee.
He also said poverty in the area had forced many residents into illegal logging.
 “Once the illegal logs have been loaded onto trains, rangers cannot do anything further.
The responsibility then belongs to the railway sector,” he said.
About 30-40 passenger trains traverse the Hai Van Pass – which connects the central city of Da Nang and Thua Thien-Hue Province – each day.
Up to four trains transporting construction materials for an enhancement railway project in the area also travel through the pass daily.