Thailand

Tonymercury · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 5:45 am

Tenders called for Bangkok Purple Line
29 Apr 2008

THAILAND: A 2013 opening is now envisaged for Bangkok's Purple Line, after Japan Bank for International Co-operation signed a 25-year loan agreement worth ¥62·4bn following months of negotiations.

Invitations to tender were issued at the end of April, and bids are due to be returned by August. Work is expected to take 45 months on a fixed-price contract basis.

The 23 km Purple Line will run on a 19 m high viaduct from Bang Sue northwest to Bang Yai, with 16 stations serving areas of high population density which are currently reliant on buses for public transport. A 330 m bridge will span the Chao Phraya River.

The line is to be operated by a private concessionaire, but unlike the existing Skytrain line it will be designed with step-free access for disabled passengers. An initial daily ridership of 200 000 is anticipated, growing to 290 000 by 2022.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has said the government intends to take over the Skytrain elevated metro by buying outstanding debt owned by Bangkok Mass Transit System Co at a cost of around 50bn baht. The government is once again considering plans for a unified ticketing scheme across the capital.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 5:43 am

This is mind-numbing! But note the apparent reference to PPPs.

IRJ-
Thailand approves budget for $US 11.6 billion rail plan THE THAI government’s transport mega-project committee has approved a Baht 367.3 billion ($US 11.6 billion) budget for the construction of five double-track lines with a total length of 2644 km.
The government plans to invite private companies to invest in the new lines under concession agreements, and it says rolling stock manufacturers will be given priority in the bidding process if they agree to set up manufacturing sites in Thailand.
The new lines are intended to increase rail’s share of the freight market from 2.8% to 10%.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 6:33 am

At last, big plans for SRT
Saritdet Marukatat

If you build it, they will come.'' A voice inspires farmer Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams, to turn his cornfield into a baseball ground. After the construction, dead baseball players come out to play the game.

The bigwigs at the State Railway of Thailand and Transport Ministry are now thinking something similar. If new lines and the additional double-track networks are built, they will come. What they mean is that more passengers and freight will go by rail, thus ending SRT's misery.

After enjoying profits in the early years, the agency has been in the red since 1974. Its accumulated losses stand at 51 billion baht. Another 34 billion baht liability will be added for the Airport Rail Link project to be launched next year.

The main reason for losing money looks simple. More roads have been built in the country than railway lines. And they are constantly improved from two to four and even six lanes for key highways across the country.

The rail network in this country covers some 4,043 km, less than in neighbouring Burma, which has around 5,500 km. Worse, only 280 km of the Thai rail is the double-track system, compared with 200 km in Malaysia and 600 km in Burma.

Thus it is not difficult to imagine why delays are very common for passengers due to that traffic bottleneck. To arrive at a railway station only to find that the train taking them to their destination will come two hours late, is still possible.

The single track limits the driver to run the train at a maximum speed of 120 km per hour. Thus it is understandable for railway officials to envy those working at the Highways Department because roads always come first when policy-makers talk about transport infrastructure.

Suddenly, last Thursday, something favourable to the railway agency happened at a transport meeting. All the big shots agreed that it was time to make a serious effort to develop the railways.

So now the government will spend 39 billion baht to improve the tracks, including laying more double tracks.

That won't be enough. In the long term, around 367 billion baht will be spent for new and wider tracks covering 2,644 km. The railway jargon for this is ''standard gauge,'' which is 1.435 metres wide, compared to the one-metre gauge system being used now. Thailand will eventually have high speed trains running at 160 km per hour from Bangkok to Nakhon Sawan, Pattaya, Chanthaburi and Nakhon Ratchasima. The bottom line for this is that focus should be shifted to trains because they can carry people and goods in large amounts at the same time. Logistics costs will be cut and there will be even less pollution especially in the long term when electricity, not diesel, will be the main power to haul trains.

Should train enthusiasts give the government a big round of applause? The answer could be ''No.'' One conclusion of this ambitious plan is that it is going too far, too quickly.

There is no argument the SRT needs the double-track system. The on-time schedule and faster trains which would result will lure people to take the train and factory owners to transport their freight. But will it need to add the standard gauge into the existing system? Whether the tracks should be widened from one metre to 1.435m has been the subject of debate among train officials for several years. Wider tracks mean trains can run faster, that's true. But new technologies can also help trains on the one-metre track to run faster, too. The money to build the new system should be used to expand the train network to more areas in the country. Only 600 km have been added to the railway map since the establishment of the SRT to replace the Royal State Railways of Siam in 1951. That was 57 years ago.

It would be easy to equip the SRT with high speed trains, but whether it would be worth it remains a question. Other countries such as Japan, France, Germany, South Korea and Taiwan have those kind of trains. But that happened after all basic train infrastructure was put in place, including the double-track system, and enough coaches to serve passengers, enough locomotives to pull the trains and qualified staff to run the organisation.

''Don't think too far ahead about high speed trains. Let's find a way to have our present trains run quicker first and think about other things later.'' That's what one senior SRT official said about what should be the priority for his agency.

Saritdet Marukatat is News Editor, Bangkok Post.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 6:42 am

BANGKOK AIRPORT LINE DELAY
Friday, 23 May 2008

Sino-Thai Engineering & Construction Plc (Stecon), and B Grimm , the firms responsible for civil engineering on the 28 km new rail link to Bangkok's airport, are asking for a 12 month extension to complete the 12.3 billion baht ($US368m) project, which began in the summer of 2005. They attribute the delay to “slow land transfers” on the part of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). Another consortium partner, Siemens AG, holds a 13.6 billion baht ($US469m) contract for trackwork, signalling and the supply of rolling stock.

Allowing for a seven-month testing period, it seems unlikely that the line will open to the public before December 2009.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:26 am

RAIL TRAVEL
Free rides in 3rd class, but not all trains
AMORNRAT MAHITTHIROOK

The government's free train travel programme launches tomorrow _ but only on third-class services over a limited distance. The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) will offer the free rides as part of the government's six-month economic assistance package for the poor.

But the service will be available only on non-air-conditioned, third-class, non-express trains.

SRT spokesman Pairat Rojcharoen-ngarm said free rides would be available on 380 carriages of 164 third-class trains and on ''combi'' trains, which have both freight and third-class passenger compartments.

The third-class compartments of combi trains which also have second-class or first-class carriages would not be part of the scheme, nor would the third-class carriages of express services.

Fare-free trains will run on most of the four SRT lines, Mr Pairat said. However, free northbound services would end their runs at the Den Chai station in Phrae province, despite the northernmost destination being Chiang Mai.

Heading south, the free rides would go only as far as Chumphon. Normal fares will apply if passengers from Bangkok wish to go beyond these destinations.

However, there will be 10 free services from Hat Yai to the three southernmost provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala.

North-eastern journeys will end in Nakhon Ratchasima and Khon Kaen provinces, and the eastern trains will travel to Aranyaprathet in Sa Kaeo province.

Trains and platforms offering free rides will be marked with green signs.

Passengers will not need to obtain any tickets or passes before boarding the free trains, said Mr Pairat.

The SRT has already cut the fares of express trains on the three suburban routes, from 110 baht to between 20 and 50 baht depending on the distance.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 5:51 am

Making it personal
22/08/2008 3:11:00 PM
Many expat Australians gradually abandon their native land, adopt local customs and drift into an easy life. Not Rod Beattie. This outback type (born in Gympie) has lived for 13 years in Kanchanaburi, Thailand 128 km west of Bangkok and the site of the Bridge on the River Kwai. But see the weathered face of the khaki-clad bloke talking to visitors at his Thai-Burma Railway museum, and you could be in any Queensland country town.
Let him fix you with his strangely hypnotic eyes and launch into a story and you are lost, captive to an unlikely Scheherazade. He always has one more story to tell about the Japanese ''Death Railway'' and the allied prisoners who built it under such appalling conditions.

Beattie first came to Kanchanaburi as a sapphire mining consultant, but became engrossed by the railway. Exploring Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, he met Australians trying to trace mates or relatives. Moved by their attempts, and intrigued by their lack of solid information, he decided to help.

Not content to make a few queries or check out the odd dusty diary, in 1995 Beattie set off to walk the entire unmapped 415 km length of the railway, battling through overgrown jungle and over mountain passes.

In all, he spent five years tracing the railway through Thailand and Burma, locating campsites where Australian soldiers worked and frequently died of disease or exhaustion. When he set off, little was known about the fate of many of these soldiers, but by the end of Beattie's determined trek, he had accounted for every one of the 2661 Aussie casualties, finding the place and cause of death for all but three. Beattie downplays this achievement, citing his background as a civil engineer and onetime soldier, but how hard was it, really? ''Very,'' he admits. ''The records are scattered all over the place. It was a case of creating two lists, one of prisoner of war deaths from original wartime records and another of present-day burial or commemoration sites. The two had to be compared and combined so I now have a record of [every] Australian reported as dying on the railway.''

While many Aussies harbour vague plans to visit the place where a relative served or died overseas. Melbournian Doug Ogden, whose father died on the Thai-Burma border, actually did it in 1995, with Beattie's help. It wasn't easy, he concedes. ''Most of my life I couldn't talk to anybody about my father. I couldn't hear The Last Post without almost gagging, choking. There's a lot of fear about going back to where your father died, because you're going where your father was treated badly. It's like visiting a crime scene.''

Ogden had got as far as Kanchanaburi when he encountered Beattie. Even then Beattie knew the area better than anyone, says Ogden. ''It's his passion in life; actually, 'obsession' is a more accurate description. Rod's determined to ensure that this part of Australian history is never forgotten and to this end he works like a man on a mission. Rod can talk on a range of subjects but always before long he is back to 'the railway'.''

Beattie took Ogden into the jungle himself. ''It was only with Rod's local knowledge that we came upon what we believe was Kami Sonkurai, where my father died. This was very emotional. To imagine my father may have been on this ground and that he may have even touched some of the sleepers still remaining, caused great elation and sadness. It will always be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.''

Ogden returned with other 2/29 Battalion families for a memorial dedication, with Beattie as guide.

As Ogden says, ''The families had to go, to find out, because no-one told them anything about their fathers. It's important for people to actually touch the ground, see where their father spent the war, or died. Even if he came back, often he wouldn't talk about it. They had to understand their father's behaviour some people got back to society, but they were not part of society, some became a bit violent, or drank.''

Beattie often meets people like Ogden. ''The other day I spotted someone showing a piece of paper to my head gardener [Beattie works part-time for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Kanchanaburi] so I went to help him. I asked the relationship and was told 'my father'''. The man had known little of his father's fate. He knew he died in the Far East, and recently he found on the CWGC website that he was commemorated in Kanchanaburi.

''I was able to tell Peter that his father died a few hundred metres from where we were standing. By the time I took Peter across to the museum and copied the wartime documents recording his father's movements on the railway, his death and burial, he was stunned into silence. The reaction of people I take to the actual camps or cemetery sites is even more emotional.''

Beattie clearly finds this work satisfying but it wasn't enough.

The Hellfire Pass Memorial, 80 km from Kanchanaburi, is about the railway, rather than soldiers' individual stories, Beattie explains. It's also quite remote and many veterans can't get there, so (naturally) he decided to build a museum in Kanchanaburi.

Undaunted by broken promises of government assistance, Beattie went it alone, adding galleries and displays as money trickled in.

He insisted on authenticity. He makes the point that the precisely-scaled model of the railway mirrors the railway's actual compass orientation and the rocks and rails in the construction displays are real. The 20 mm-high diorama figures are individually sculpted from Dutch POW drawings. All diaries and personal effects on show are genuine, found by Beattie or donated.

And help has come form some unlikely quarters. Japanese engineer Major Renichi Sugano (who carried a secret camera while working on the building of the railway) has visited the museum three times and donated 300 photographs. He has told Beattie that he feels the museum gives a balanced account. Japanese visitors do come to the museum, though not in great numbers. Beattie says those who do come are shocked, sometimes in tears, when they learn what happened here. ''We have a book specifically for Japanese visitors to record their thoughts. Some write half a page or more. The basic theme of the comments is 'We had no idea this happened. We are so sorry'.''

What strikes you on meeting Beattie is his passion for the cause and his concern for the people he helps. And his sheer intensity, as Doug Ogden testifies. ''One time we were staying with him the night before Anzac Day. It got to be 12 o'clock and my son said, 'Mate, I've had enough, I'm going to bed' because we all had to be up at 3 am for the dawn service. But Rod is still bashing on and then it is 2 am, and then the next thing you know, it's 3 o'clock and Rod is still talking.''

Intense, maybe, but this man Beattie and his museum are the real thing. Beattie is a link between visitors and their comrades or relatives, between Japan, Australia and Thailand and between the past and the present. In fact, he is a far more authentic bridge than the better-known edifice outside, which is there to satisfy tourists. Not even the river is really called Kwai, but that's another story.

Thirteen years on, he remains a quintessential Queenslander. Straight up. No bull. He deflects all talk of persistence or obsession and insists that the motivation for his work is just ''giving peace of mind to people.'' Which he does.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:12 am

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 (KUNA) -- As train services continued to be suspended nationwide for the fifth day Monday, members of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) resigned en masse, the Thai News Agency (TNA) reported.

The train services were disrupted when national railways workers labour union took leave as a show of support for the anti-government protest of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

TNA said SRT Board Chairman Somsak Boonthong made the announcement that all board members chose to resign to show their responsibility to the railway strike.

The news agency in its report from Bangkok quoted Somsak as saying the board did not agree with the action taken by the national railway workers labour union, that associated their jobs to national political issues not specifically related to their employment, and caused much trouble to the public.

Seventy-six SRT rail route services nationwide were disrupted, with many services suspended altogether, paralysing railway cargo transport.

The absence of many hundreds of key state railway employees, including train operators, engineers, conductors and various technicians taking sick leave had halted the trains' services.

TNA said out of 244 trains nationwide, 115 trains had stopped operation so far. However, it was reported that the northern route had resumed service at 10 am Monday morning.

More trains in northern routes were expected to operate Monday afternoon.

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PalmerEldritch · Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:55 pm

Found at: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24419368-5012752,00.html

Tonymercury · Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:12 am

Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS), which runs the city's elevated "Skytrain", said on Tuesday it planned to sell shares in an initial public offering in the first quarter of next year after a restructuring.

BTS, which had planned to launch its IPO this year, expected to complete a debt restructuring in October, director and Chief Operating Officer Surapong Laoha-Unya told reporters.

Surapong gave no reason for the delay in the IPO.

Several Thai companies have postponed share sales from September as the Thai stock market, spooked by the global financial crisis, has dropped to a five-year low.

BTS has already delayed its IPO several times due to unfavourable market conditions and a long-running debt restructuring, which involves raising capital, seeking foreign loans, issuing domestic bonds and seeking new investors.

The restructuring would help BTS find $600m to repay debts to creditors, Surapong said.

"After completing the restructuring, the company will turn around and start making a profit next year," he said.

BTS, whose debt position deteriorated at the time of Asia's 1997/98 financial crisis, opened its 23.5 km (14.6 mile) elevated rail system in central Bangkok business areas in December 1999.

Privately owned BTS, which invested more than THB54bn ($1.6bn) to build and run the Skytrain without government subsidy, carried more than 400,000 passengers a day each weekday last year, still below its breakeven level of 490,000.

"We haven't run at that level since we opened," Surapong said adding that the company aimed for at least a 5% rise in passenger numbers this year.

It has chosen Phatra Securities, Kim Eng Securities, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank to advise on the IPO.

Shares in property developer Tanayong, which has a minority stake in BTS, were down 2.6% at THB0.37 at the midday break, when the main Thai index was 2.94% lower.

Reporting by Saranya Suksomkij, Writing by Khettiya Jittapong, Reuters.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 4:39 am

Red Line to proceed
22 Dec 2008

THAILAND: An 8·7bn baht contract for construction of the first phase of the Red Line in suburban Bangkok was signed on December 12.

State Railway of Thailand has finalised the agreement for a 15·3 km line from Taling Chan to Bang Sue with the Unique-Chun Wo joint venture of Unique Engineering & Construction and Chun Wo Development Holdings of Hong Kong. Work is expected to last three years, and includes construction of four stations.

The line will be electrified, and operated by SRT with the private sector being responsible only for construction. A second phase would extend the line from Bang Sue to Rangsit along an existing SRT corridor.

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Tonymercury · Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 5:47 am

SRT struggles to overcome political obstacles

Thailand has plans to invest heavily in upgrading the national rail network, but inadequate revenues, debt, and political unrest still pose major challenges for the country’s railway, as Keith Barrow explains.
SITUATED at the heart of the Asia-Pacific region, Thailand is ideally positioned to benefit from the increasing levels of trade between its neighbours. Indeed, the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) network is central to the proposed 5382 km Singapore-Kunming Rail Link (SKRL), which will connect southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand with Malaysia and Singapore.

Today’s network carries very little cross-border traffic, a reflection of the missing links with neighbouring countries. Thailand’s only operational cross-border connections are with Malaysia, although a line from Nong Khai to the Laotian capital Vientiane is currently being built with the help of the Thai government. Restoration of the 40 km line from Poipet to Sisophon in Cambodia is another essential element of SKRL, although much of this line lies in Cambodian territory.

A significant proportion of SKRL lies within Thailand, and a major programme of upgrading is planned to provide the additional capacity that will be required for SKRL, and to help lift SRT’s meagre 2.8% share of the domestic freight market.

The Thai government is also keen to improve rail’s lowly status in the passenger transport business. SRT carries around 54 million passengers per year, or a modal share of just 7%, and passenger numbers fell 2% annually between 2001 and 2006.

Thailand’s thirst for oil means the need to achieve a significant modal shift to rail is becoming increasingly acute. The reliance on road transport means cars account for 38% of the country’s total fuel consumption, and a sharp increase in the price of oil, as witnessed in mid-2008, quickly develops into a national economic problem.

The government’s short-term target is to increase capacity by 270%, which is intended to increase SRT’s share of the freight market to 10-15%, and increase passenger numbers by 33%. The Thai State Enterprise Policy Office (SEPO) says this modal shift would allow it to reduce road maintenance costs by $US 190 million per year, and reduce fuel consumption by 280 million litres of diesel per year.

At present, 94% of the 4071 km network is single track, severely limiting capacity on all but the most lightly-used lines. The government has allocated 72% of the $US 3.75 billion 2008-16 SRT infrastructure budget to allow 832 km of track-doubling, and $US 820 million will be available for signalling and track upgrading. Funding for this programme will come from the state budget, loans from commercial and international development banks, and from investors through an infrastructure fund.

In the medium-term, SRT intends to upgrade a number of routes radiating from the capital for the operation of 160 km/h passenger services. These include:
• Bangkok - Hua Hin
• Bangkok - Chai Badan - Nakhon Sawan/Nakhon Ratchasima, and
• Bangkok - Sattahip - Chantaburi

The latter project would involve the construction of a new 125 km line running along the Gulf of Thailand from the existing railhead at Sattahip to Chantaburi. Feasibility studies for these projects are now underway and the government has allocated funding for them to continue this year.

A more ambitious long-term plan is the development of a network of standard-gauge lines linking key ports and border crossings with principal economic centres in northern and central Thailand. Construction would begin with the 247 km Eastern Corridor line from Kangkoi to Matabhut. “Over the last 50 years little effort has been put into maintaining and improving the network,” Mr Warawat Sabhavasu of SEPO told delegates at Beacon Events’ Asia Rail conference in Singapore last November. “SRT has been viewed as a utility, with fares kept artificially low for social reasons. This means it has accumulated large debts to cover its operating costs.”

SRT hopes to arrest the decline in passenger numbers, which fell by around 2% per year between 2001 and 2006. Photos: Alexander Mackay.

SRT has debts of $US 1.43 billion, which generate annual interest payments of $US 51 million. The railway made a loss of $US 184 million in 2006, and is expected to post a loss of around $US 280 million for 2008. SRT wants to tackle these debts by increasing its freight business from 30% to 50% of its total revenues, but this is dependent on increasing capacity to reduce transit times, and investment in rolling stock.

SRT has allocated $US 430 million for rolling stock investment in the period 2007-16. This includes $US 117 million for new coaches, $US 146 million for commuter trains, and $US 62 million for air-conditioned dmus. It is also planning to refurbish 69 diesel locomotives between 2010 and 2013 at a cost of $US 97 million. The government intends to fund the rolling stock programme through SRT’s operating cash flow and debt financing.

But as a state-owned enterprise, SRT’s investment plans are at the mercy of the political instability that continues to grip the country. Last year, the government of the then prime minister Mr Samak Sundaravej granted free third-class travel on all SRT services for six months, further weakening the railway’s already-shaky revenues. In August the network was crippled by strikes as railway unions called for Samak’s resignation. The SRT board of directors took responsibility for the strike, which cost SRT $US 1.76 million, and subsequently resigned en masse. However, normal operation did not resume until Samak himself stood down.

The Samak government was keen to invest in SRT and attempted to push through a massive expansion of Bangkok’s two metro networks, but Thailand’s vigorous rate of political turnover sits awkwardly alongside the long-term requirements of infrastructure planning. The need to reduce Thailand’s dependence on oil, and the country’s key role in developing the SKRL, mean the once isolated SRT network could have a much greater role to play both domestically and internationally. But a more stable political environment will be essential if SRT is to achieve its full potential.

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