The British and French Empires first proposed building a railway from Kunming to Singapore in 1900 as Russia was completing the Trans-Siberian Railway [REF].
A continuous metre-gauge rail line from Kunming to Singapore via Hanoi, Saigon, Phenom Penh, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur was not realized as the French never built the "missing link" between Phnom Penh and Saigon, choosing to build a highway instead [REF].