High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Rail transport was first introduced in Burma in May 1877, when Lower Burma was a colony of the United Kingdom and a part of British India, with the opening of the Rangoon to Prome line by The Irrawaddy Valley State Railway. This line, 163 miles long, tracing the course of the Irrawaddy river, was built over three years with labor imported from India, particularly from the areas affected by the Bihar famine of 1873–74. In 1884, a new company, The Sittang Valley State Railway, opened a 166 mile line along the Sittang River from Rangoon to the town of Toungoo via Pegu. While the Irrawaddy line was considered to be of commercial importance because it could be used to move rice from the valley to the main port at Rangoon, the Sittang line was of considerable strategic importance because of the proximity of Toungoo to the border with Upper Burma, then a part of the Ava kingdom. This became evident at the start of the Third Anglo-Burmese War a year...