Expat Girl

When a new poster appears to be interested in only one topic about which they are both very positive and knowledgeable, I have to wonder about ulterior motives.

Don't worry i have no ulterior motives, i just joined this forum today and this was the first topic i picked up on, and not had a great deal of time to browse them all given i am sat at work. I will be active in other posts, i am sure there is some great discussions on this website, good and bad, and hopefully i can contribute.

I'll try and keep my cynicism down for a while - welcome and cheers!

Thanks Airconsult, good to have a bit of banter now and again.

What a bizarre world we live in, what makes me smile is he had the audacity to do it, knowing people were around, got to see the funny side of it is guess. Seen a few sights on the Tube, but not that

Its took a while for the arrests happen, but good on the Thai Police for continuing to pursue the matter, although I do wonder if a lot of these activities are being accelerated due to the new PM putting pressure on the Police. Either way the outcome is good and who knows what it will lead to.

When a new poster appears to be interested in only one topic about which they are both very positive and knowledgeable, I have to wonder about ulterior motives.

Don't worry i have no ulterior motives, i just joined this forum today and this was the first topic i picked up on, and not had a great deal of time to browse them all given i am sat at work. I will be active in other posts, i am sure there is some great discussions on this website, good and bad, and hopefully i can contribute.

I find it interesting that the project will open to bidders and then construction design will happen later. Must be a misquote or something. How could you possibly bid on something that was not yet spec'd?

I agree, i expect, if it does get approval, there will be a phase were a multitude of consultants will spec everything out, then it will go out to tender and the bidders will make there recommendations both on price and the technical aspects.

Personally, without being negative, i cannot see the construction tenders going out till early 2015, maybe February or March, but sometimes things do move along when they want them to.

I would assume, please correct me if i am wrong, that the monorail would essentially have two 'monorails' if that makes sense, one for each direction. If that is the case i believe the movement of 200,000 people a day is achievable. Not sure how many passengers per train, but at a guess i would say 900. Hopefully it will look visually better than the BTS as i expect there will be more light between the two 'rails' or one as the case maybe.

I like optimism - but let's look at it this way.

200,000 divided by 18 hours (it won't be open 24 hrs) - that's 11111 per hour (call it 11 thousand, give them a chance here).

Now - if a train departs every 5 minutes, that's 916 every 5 minutes (and we can assume some people are going in both directions)

If it is the same design as KL - then each carriage carries max 158 passengers in a 2-car configuration.

Oops - now we're "off the rails" so to speak as we need to carry 916 every 5 minutes and even if people are travelling equally in both directions we have 632 - short by almost 300.

Again - compare that to the heavy rail which is BTS - currently 600,000 in 18 hours over the same distance with more stations (stations are a delay).

The monorail concept doesn't make sense for the number of people it will need to accommodate after the first 6 months.

EDIT - last item *NOISE* The design of the BTS tracks with the sides tends to funnel most of the noise upwards. A monorail design doesn't do that, and will be travelling through residential neighbourhoods.

I don't believe this system will be anything like the KL Monorail, i am sure the responsible parties in the government have undertaken a details analysis of the patronage of the system and that is why they are quoting the figures they are, whether they are realistic remains to be seen, but there is always a fine balance between peak and off peak services, as no doubt we have all witnessed on occasions on the BTS.

11,000 per hour is very achievable, remember they will be running services in both directions, not just 916 every 5 minutes in one direction, there will be peak and off peak flow both inbound and outbound so there should be some balance as to the amount of passenger in each direction.

I do agree stations are a delay, but disagree on the noise, most monorails are very quite, given the vehicles predominately run on rubber tyres, and unlike the BTS there is a lot of noise distributed between the rail and wheel, metal to metal which produces a high level of vibration through the concrete bed, which is very rigid.

Here is my prediction, 6 car monorail, dual 'monorail tracks' moving between 20 and 22,000 passengers per hour (10 to 11,000 on average each way), at a minimum, and if the MRTA and BTS systems are anything to go by, it will be an excellent network. Again hats off to the Thai government for moving forward with these projects, lets hope it does get cabinet approval.

I would assume, please correct me if i am wrong, that the monorail would essentially have two 'monorails' if that makes sense, one for each direction. If that is the case i believe the movement of 200,000 people a day is achievable. Not sure how many passengers per train, but at a guess i would say 900. Hopefully it will look visually better than the BTS as i expect there will be more light between the two 'rails' or one as the case maybe.

Doesn't make sense. First off, in the article it says they chose the monorail because it has a smaller turning radius. Secondly, if there were 2 separate tracks that would mean that the direction the train is heading on each track would alternate. That would create a lot of confusion.

I do agree with the smaller turning radius, and of course the greater the profile of the 'monorail track' the greater the turning radius. But if you look at the picture in the news story it does indicate dual 'monorail tracks' and also i did a quick Google search on the Pink Line and the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRT_Pink_Line does state two 'monorail tracks', how true this is i don't know, but personally i think it will be two track given the distance of the network.

With regard to the direction if there was two tracks, i do not believe this would be any different to the BTS, they would need a crossover area at the two terminus stations, which i believe is feasible with Monorail Systems.

I would assume, please correct me if i am wrong, that the monorail would essentially have two 'monorails' if that makes sense, one for each direction. If that is the case i believe the movement of 200,000 people a day is achievable. Not sure how many passengers per train, but at a guess i would say 900. Hopefully it will look visually better than the BTS as i expect there will be more light between the two 'rails' or one as the case maybe.

Fantastic news, it's great to see the government making these investments in infrastructure. Along with the Blue Line extension, the Purple Line and the BTS extension, Bangkok is moving in the right direction, well done.