Motorcycle Transport By Train?

[LivinLOS]

If you have a car you can buy a bike trailer for as little as ~40,000 Baht and drive to your destination. (I'm thinking about getting one)

For the cost of a car and a motorbike trailer you could buy ten motorbikes and leave them in ten different cities.

I lover these tales of the rich and famous in Thailand. You could probably have a private Lear jet land

next to your front door and take you and your motorbike to the front door of your destination

for $20,000 . Bon Voyage.

If you read it he says "if you have a car" which many of us of course do.

For me the issue is often the missus wants to come also and I dont want to strap 2 people and 2 peoples luggage onto a bike, and if she flys it cuts down on the luggage. So a car a bike trailer would allow me to drive to destination with her, all her luggage, and then me to have my machine there to play around on.

[Powerband]

if any sends by post be sure to wrap the bike in plastic, they put these 2 huge ass stickers on your bike that can peel the paint off.

[Sisaketmike]

At the Chiang Mai train station they told me that I can only take the bike with me on the train - cannot send it if I am not a passenger...

Can send it by post though! Small bike Chiang Mai to Chumpon - 2200baht. Post office to post office (poste restante). Can mail bike to Samui too.

Big bikes - don't know.

If there are a few bikes - try to find a transport company - should be a lot cheaper.

An easier way to get your bike wherever you want to in Thailand is by truck. There's a transportation company in every city. I forgot the name in Thai, it's cheap and a very good service. They brought my bike from Sisaket/ Isaan to Phuket for 4,000 baht. Good luck.

[Thaison]

Wicked! Had similar experience when taking a Honda Phantom on the "ferry" from Ranong to Koh Phayam. If you been there you know what the ferry is like. Retrofitted fishing boat whit two decks. Drove up to the jetty and asked if I could bring my bike along. Sure thing and out of the blue came 10 Burmese lads and carried the bike ant-style onboard and handed me some old inner tubes to tie it down. 70 Thb for the job. Same procedure on Koh Phayam but 20 Thb more expensive, guess island tax :-)

Transporting yoru bike Laos style

[Newguy70]

Hi Guys,

Train is by far the easiest way to get your bike somewhere in Thailand. I have tossed a scootter on a train from Bangkok to Surin, and a motorcycle from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Easy as Pie, have not had any problems, and do not foressee any in the future, unless they drop the bike. As Tony stated earlier, they usually do not have a ramp, I found this odd as well, but TIT. For both trips my bikes were both lifted on , and off by several individuals. You ask was I worried, not a bit ( well maybe a little), on my Ninja they actually had the BIB oversee the loading, and disloading of the bike. The guys loading did ask for a tip, and I did provide (20baht ) per man, please keep in mind that when you do purhcase to have your bike transported, they actually have a handling fee included in the breakdown (you will get a reciept), so the tipping is up to you. I did not provide tie downs either time, they actually provide rope with the fee to ship, you can oversee them while they tie it down or can help out, up to you.

Hope this Helps,

:jap:

[transplant]

I've transported bikes here a few times on trains and didn't have any problems. My advice is, talk to the guy that's going to load your bike and tip him to look after your bike. If you do, you shouldn't have any problems. If you don't, you'll probably wish you did.

[wjmark]

Train sounds great, BUT don't you have to be on the train with it?

If you want to travel a different way, I believe you can't send your bike by train alone...

And I have heard that when you go through Bangkok, you have to take care of having the bike change trains too.

[jb5music]

I still have yet to try this and now it's almost two years later after these

first posts. Can you still put your motorbike on the train from Hat Yai to

Bangkok?

[RidersCorner]

can they get scratched on the train?

had my bike railed surat - Nakhon Pathom, planning a 4:30am start to Nakhon Phanom b4 Saung Kran. I arrived, no bike, no-one spoke any english, but managed by my rough thai to get that bike coming later. 5 bloody hours later, and bike with a free layer of chicken fertilizer. it's like pissing on a power socket - try it once and you'll never try again!!!!

mmmm bike by train..... no comment from the old fart

can you think of another way to get from samui to Nakhon nowhere in a day?

Ummm... you could perhaps RIDE the bike?

[Newguy70]

Anythings possible...

[suanpai]

Taking a motorcycle on Thai railways

Having researched the subject I decided not to ride the bike from Krabi to Chiang Mai. A distance of some 1500km would cost around 5000B in fuel apart from the hotel expenses. So a short ride to Surathani railway station seemed the way to go with a change at Bangkok and then overnight to Chiang Mai.

The staff at Surathani were helpful and assured me all would be well. I payed around 1400B for the bike plus my ticket and waited for the train. When it arrived the uniformed train staff looked at the size of the Honda Africa Twin and must have guessed it weighed in at 200kg and shook their heads. There was space in the goods van with some organization but it was refused on the grounds there was no room. A condition of travel is you have to accompany the bike. I was told to board the train after a guarantee the bike would follow on the next train. I reluctantly got aboard. In Bangkok I waited for my bike only to learn it had not arrived. After talking calmly to the information desk and the station master I was assured that it would arrive at 10am. You guessed it, it did not. Next visit was to the office upstairs and an apologetic employee assured me the bike was still on the platform at Surathani and would be dispatched in the evening to arrive the following morning. Any suggestion as to who would pay for my hotel fell on deaf ears! At 5.30am I left my hotel to meet the train and was almost surprised to see the bike in the goods van. No ramps seem to be available anywhere so the bike has to be manhandled on to the platform. The journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was uneventful and was unloaded in a similar manner where I was asked for 200B for the privilege of having it put on the platform. After all my extra expenses and paintwork damage ( the bike was dropped) I refused. I would certainly not recommend this mode of transport to anyone unless you have a small machine which can be loaded easily. If you have a larger machine don't even think about unless you like it thrown down on the platform and the paintwork damaged!

[Newguy70]

I have shipped my ninja a bunch of times, and never had a problem. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. You indicated the bike was dropped; how were the damages handled?

For me i will continue to use the train as an option ( i love it). . .

[suanpai]

I have shipped my ninja a bunch of times, and never had a problem. Sorry to hear about your misfortune. You indicated the bike was dropped; how were the damages handled?

For me i will continue to use the train as an option ( i love it). . .

I love the train but for me only from now on! The damage was quite small really and I have dropped it before. But I did draw their attention to the paintwork but had no response which was expected. But glad to hear you have not encountered any problems. Anyway I'm getting older now and find the bike just too heavy for ease so its up for sale!