Southern train services expected to resume Sunday evening

BANGKOK: -- The train services from the deep South are expected to resume Sunday evening after a train derailment in Songkhla Saturday evening caused the services to be suspended.

At 11:30 am Sunday, Thanongsak Pongprasert, director of the southern office of the State Railway Authority, said the services from three southern border provinces are expected to resume at 4 pm.

The five-car Suknai Kolok - Phattalung train derailed between Hat Yai and Lan Din stations in Songkhla Saturday, injuring 29 passengers.

Officials were trying to remove the derailed train and repair the part of the tracks.

He said if the works could not be finished in time, passengers form the three southern border provinces would be transported from the Hat Yai station to catch other trains at the Nakhon Si Thammarat station.

-- The Nation 2008-04-04

Any idea what caused the derailment?

'raising suspicions that militants may have torn up the tracks.'

http://bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=127467

Fatal derailment

SONGKHLA: -- One passenger died and 13 others were injured and hospitalised when four passenger carriages of a train ran off the rails in southern Songkhla province, raising suspicions that militants may have torn up the tracks.

The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) said Sunday morning that the cause of the accident was not yet determined. Normal service was to be restored Sunday afternoon.

The accident occurred on Saturday evening, when a train enroute to Sungai Kolok on the Malaysian border derailed near a village railway station in Songkhla province, officials said.

Fourteen injured passengers were sent to a hospital in Hat Yai city. One man died shortly after admission, of multiple abdomen injuries, officials said.

An expectant mother travelling as well gave birth at the hospital, they said. Both mother and her newborn child were in safe condition.

The accident raised suspicions that southern militants had torn up the rails, as they have done dozens of times in the past. Railway experts were investigating the accident on Sunday.

Several hundred passengers were stranded at Hat Yai station because the accident preveented at least two trains from continue their journey as crews laboured to repair the tracks and remove the damaged locomotive and four passenger carriages, the SRT spokesmen said.

-- TNA / Bangkok Post 2008-05-04