SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

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FrazeeDK
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » June 9, 2012, 7:24 pm

Today I drove through Non Takai village which straddles the railway about 22km south of Udon. About 8 months ago both Parrot and I noted there was significant clearance going on along the railway in that village and speculated it might have something to do with the Potash mining. Today I observed that the initial clearing has been hugely expanded into a multiple siding railyard and that tens of thousands of steel railway rails are stacked. A huge special loading/unloading crane straddles the railyard and there were dozens of flatcars full of rails. On the north side of the yard were about 250 meters of mountains of gravel.. I'm assuming this portends the long planned State Railway of Thailand (SRT) double-tracking initiative for the entire BKK-Nong Khai line.. The only other possibility would be the planned Sakol Nakon line but the BKK Post said that is supposed to spur off the main line south of Khon Khaen..


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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by parrot » June 9, 2012, 8:32 pm

We were in Non Takai a few weeks ago......I took a photo of the stacks of rails. A villager told me: The rail is delivered to Thailand from China. It's trucked up from the port in Bangkok. At Non Takai, several 25m lengths (I think 3) are welded together (using a special machine). The resulting 75m lengths are then sent by special rail car to be put down as new track. The end result will be a dual track from Nongkai to BKK.

I asked the villager who we've known for years his opinion of the prospects of the Potash mine. He gave it little to no chance of operating in his lifetime. JHHO.

Another interesting thing about the new track. The rail ties are all made of cement.....wood is too expensive/difficult to obtain.

A monster of a big project.......it must be in the multi-billions of baht......the only improvement being a double track. Same old slow trains!
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by bluejets » June 10, 2012, 9:16 am

All sleepers are concrete these days.

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by Jed » June 10, 2012, 9:49 am

RR action roughly opposite Makro before entering Nong Khai.

Tons of money thrown at more of the same, it seems.

Wonder who pushed this one through?
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by parrot » June 10, 2012, 10:21 am

There's this piece from April about the new track.....
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/tou ... in-in-vain
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » June 10, 2012, 12:30 pm

interesting article which made no mention of the Nong Khai line upgrade. Per Parrot, if they're doing concrete sleepers, new ballast and welded rails, it should automatically allow an increase in train speed. The double tracking will as noted in the article also improve train speed. A recent BKK Post article also commented on Siemens potentially opening a railway car production facility in Khon Khaen.. New rails, double-tracking, new cars.. All they need now is SRT to improve their business model and efficiency.!
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by udonthani » June 10, 2012, 2:05 pm

To my knowledges, there are already construction on double tracks going on here in Udorn surroundings, special north of Udorn (Ban Tatom). I have read and follow this topic close, due to my former work, also I have several times used BKK to Udorn special on night trains, this can be a nightmare, due to old tracks with their bad connections to each other (klonkey de klonk) but in general no hassle. If I was in position to give advise to Thai Railways, they should change to electricity and do much more for transporting goods, and try to keep arrival times much better, quite often we are 1-3 hours late in Hua Lompong than announced and same visa versa BKK to Udorn
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by Khun Paul » June 10, 2012, 5:35 pm

maybe, just maybe I am being cynical but many years ago when they initially put in the Railway line it was supposed to be two lines , but as per usual with corruption and basically lack of control only one was built, now at vast expense they are attempting to put in the second one some 20 years later, the shame is that the rolling stock also needs to be upgraded so do we wait yet another 20 years for that or will i see it from afar as I am liable to have passed on before that happens as well.

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » June 17, 2012, 9:12 pm

what we thought was a double-tracking project might just be a track "rehabilitation".

A European railway journal with some interesting info.

http://www.railwaygazette.com/nc/news/s ... posed.html


what appears to be a Power Point briefing given by a Thai transport minister to the French Embassy.. This is a tad confusing but breaks down the time frames and track areas scheduled for both double-tracking and track rehab.

http://www.tfta.or.th/NEWS/images/rails ... y_tfta.ppt
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by stattointhailand » June 17, 2012, 9:33 pm

Khun Paul wrote:maybe, just maybe I am being cynical but many years ago when they initially put in the Railway line it was supposed to be two lines , but as per usual with corruption and basically lack of control only one was built, now at vast expense they are attempting to put in the second one some 20 years later, the shame is that the rolling stock also needs to be upgraded so do we wait yet another 20 years for that or will i see it from afar as I am liable to have passed on before that happens as well.

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » June 20, 2012, 9:39 pm

near as I can research the Khorat/Nong Khai line has been in place for nigh a 100 years.. Why they didn't double-track it is debatable but it does appear that within the next few years it will be "rehabed" or double-tracked to the point where it will allow trains to travel at over a 100km per hour which will be a gigantic increase in speed..
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by parrot » November 14, 2014, 6:43 am

Interesting article at http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general ... track-line

According to the piece, the double track would be 1.435mm gauge. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Railway_of_Thailand the country's current system uses the 1.000mm gauge. That'd mean a complete revamp of tracks.....and I'd assume cars/engines/etc.......which would probably be a good thing, given the sad state of current equipment/tracks. All told, that'd be like building a new system from scratch.
What's next.....a switch to left-hand side drive vehicles??

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by merchant seaman » November 14, 2014, 7:16 am

Have to wait and see. Been conflicting reports coming out of recent meetings on various subjects.
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by socksy » November 14, 2014, 7:54 am

parrot wrote:Interesting article at http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general ... track-line

According to the piece, the double track would be 1.435mm gauge. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Railway_of_Thailand the country's current system uses the 1.000mm gauge. That'd mean a complete revamp of tracks.....and I'd assume cars/engines/etc.......which would probably be a good thing, given the sad state of current equipment/tracks. All told, that'd be like building a new system from scratch.
What's next.....a switch to left-hand side drive vehicles??
Heaven forbid a switch to left hand side drive vehicles - especially at Songkran. Too many are unable to grasp the right side. 8-[
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » November 14, 2014, 3:42 pm

I'm pretty sure this new "standard" gauge track would be an entirely separate line from the current one meter line.. The government has already passed the budgeting for the 1 meter line to be double tracked on the same routing. The plans are for the standard gague double track to run from Nong Khai past Khorat and split into two lines at Saraburi, one running to Bangkok and one straight south to the large industrial area at Mathaphut down near Rayong.. It looks like the Cabinet is on to vote yea/nay on this (bets are it'll be yes) and surveying to begin next year with construction in 2016.. The Chinese are funding it so the question will be how much oversight they'll put on they're loan to ensure a transparent process in the building of the new railway. Remember, this line will link up with the one the Chinese are building through Lao from Kunming in China..
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by dalek » November 21, 2014, 7:45 pm

I noticed your post said "Remember, this line will link up with the one the Chinese are building through Laos from Kunming in China.."
Do you know if Is this ongoing at the moment? I googled the subject, but could only find an entry about a ground-breaking ceremony in Laos, and I don't think that was necessarily part of this route.

Has construction started and if so any idea of when it will reach the Nong Khai bridge?

This will all be standard gauge through Laos from what I can gather. When it reaches the bridge at Nong Khai, will there be two standard gauge tracks laid - maybe either side of the present narrow gauge 1 metre track?

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by Khun Paul » November 22, 2014, 6:28 am

Whatever happens the hold-ups, the traffic disruption and other matters will cause udon Thani to almost come to grinding stop when they deal with the numerous level crossings, Hopefully they put in a new one at the other end of the Station so that it will ease the traffic flow down past Nong Bua, or am I thinking logically again..................''note to self ...Stupid Boy ''

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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » November 22, 2014, 8:18 am

there is always the possibility that the new standard gauge railway will not even go through the center of the city.. It might be 15-20km either east or west to preclude expensive land purchases for the right of way.. Per the news article the surveying is to be done over the next year. You can bet land speculators will be following the surveyors!!

As for the construction of the rail line down through Laos, I too have not seen much in the news about it.. It will entail numerous tunnels, bridges, and cuts and engineering wise be far more difficult than the route from Bangkok to Nong Khai. If they've started it, as Google Map and Google Earth update you should be able to see the construction. The bridge across the Mekong would have to be a new one to accommodate a dual track standard gauge railway.. I can't see the current bridge with its one meter track able to expand to deal with the amount of rail traffic that will occur on the new railway.. Nowadays, I think they close the bridge twice a day for the train to pass over...
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by FrazeeDK » November 22, 2014, 8:48 am

and in following my own advice, I searched around southern China for rail lines heading south.. The closest I could find was Yuxi which is about 500km north of the Lao border. The imagery is May 2014 and I don't see any apparent railway construction heading south.. Rather strange... Much the same over towards Burma. No railways heading down there. The Chinese were building that port on the Bay of Bengal with a planned highway/railway/pipeline heading northeast to China before the Burmese cancelled it due to "indigenous protests" from tribesmen in the area...
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SRT double tracking BKK-Nong Khai route?

Post by dalek » November 22, 2014, 10:03 am

Thanks for your two informative replies.

It's purely interest on my part about the dual-track standard gauge project.

Whenever I ask Thais or ferangs who seem to have an opinion about it, there have been comments that "It's definitely going ahead and the Chinese have already started construction in Laos" or even that "They have started preparing to build the new track already here in Thailand". Neither comments seem to hold any water when I try to find some concrete evidence.
There's also some sloppy reporting in the Thai national English language press.

It was an interesting comment you made regarding the new route perhaps being up to 20km away from the existing narrow gauge track.
In itself that sounds a good idea, although it would make it more difficult for passengers to gain access a more remote station.
I can see the logic of the proposed route from Kaeng Khoi-Map Ta Phut not needing any urban access as that would be more for freight. But the Bangkok-Nong Khai and Bangkok-Map Ta Phut routes would, I'd guess, need to be more passenger orientated.

From what I can gather in the national press, the Thai & Chinese governments are due to sign an MOU in Beijing in December. If that comes to fruition, it seems that planning/construction "could" start in 2016.

As usual, I'm willing to be corrected on this.

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