Transport Ministry Earmarks Bt157bn For Rail System Development

[george]

Transport Ministry earmarks Bt157bn for rail system development

BANGKOK: -- Transport Minister Santi Prompat on Wednesday affirmed the ministry will earmark Bt157 billion of the Fiscal 2009 budget to develop the rail system to ease the country's transport costs.

He made the promise at a meeting of senior officials of state agencies supervised by the Transport Ministry held

to explain the strategy for the 2009 budget spending by the ministry.

This year, he said, the ministry will emphasise planning development of the country's expanded rail system to

reduce transport costs, including construction of five electric mass transit rail routes and 2,000-kilometres of

dual-track railway.

So far, the ministry had set aside BT259 billion from the 2008-2009 budget of Bt 770 billion for the development

of the rail system, he said.

The minister revealed Thailand's transport costs are as high as 16 per cent of the gross domestic product while

those of developed countries are only 7 per cent of GDP.

So, it is necessary for Thailand to accelerate developing the transport system by rail rather than by road, he said.

--TNA 2008-04-03

[Seneque]

The minister revealed Thailand's transport costs are as high as 16 per cent of the gross domestic product while

those of developed countries are only 7 per cent of GDP.

I wouldn't know but these countries are developped and thailand is not (yet).

[Martin]

These guys are wisely thinking ahead (though not above using an irrelevant, spurious statistic to put a bit of spin on their case).

As road transport costs go ever upward, with the rising open-market price of oil, it is only rail transport that can keep Bangkok going.

Bangkokians have to eat and do the exporting of the rice and the importing of the luxuries and transport is vital to all three.

In the longer term, they will have to put money into electrifying the longer lines, too.

But that can come after the tracks have been dualled.

[hansnl]

These guys are wisely thinking ahead (though not above using an irrelevant, spurious statistic to put a bit of spin on their case).

As road transport costs go ever upward, with the rising open-market price of oil, it is only rail transport that can keep Bangkok going.

Bangkokians have to eat and do the exporting of the rice and the importing of the luxuries and transport is vital to all three.

In the longer term, they will have to put money into electrifying the longer lines, too.

But that can come after the tracks have been dualled.

Indeed, a good rail system might become the only transport suitable for a lot of countries in the world, mainly because of the frugal energy needs of a good rail system.

The problem is that in most countries funds for roads are seen as an investment, and funds for railways as spending.

However, any move by any government to strengthen the rail sytem in any country will be battled by both the car industry and the oil companies.

The biggest problem for Thailand is the 1-metre gauge, with a realistic maximum speed of 110 km/h and a maximum axle weight of about 15,000 kg at that speed.

For goods traffic the maximum speed at higher axle weights is very much lower.

The standard rail gauge of 143,5 cm has a realistic maximum speed of (now) 330 km/h and an maximum carriage weight of nearly 50,000 kg at that speed at a rail weight of about 65 kg/m.

Even dual tracks, and all the tricks possible to maximise the amount of possible traffic, will not be enough to cope with all possible traffic, a mix of goods traffic and passenger traffic will bring down the mean speed of trains considerably.

All in all, technical solutions are possible to make it more or less possible to get Thailand's railways out of a kind of stupor and make it a valid means of transport system for this country, all against reasonable prices for exploitation.

The building of the network will be expensive, but so are roads.