Watching the news on channel 5 this morning featured a report on the reduction of Bnagkok to Chiang Mai rail services. The report said that 3 services from Bangkok north and the return workings were to be withdrawn from November the 1st, however, it did not say which train times this would apply to. I as you might have guessed have booked tickets northbound from Nakhon sawan to Chiang Mai on the 7th and have friends from the UK arriving by train from Bangkok on the 5th.

The State Railways of Thailand letest update is June 1st, 2012! I will try and ring the local station later this week in the meantime.........................

Anybody have any information about the withdrawn timed trains?

The withdrawn stock are to used for spare parts according to reports.

Channel 5 may have misreported the info as only 2 services (or a round trip service) will be withdrawn between BKK & CM, that is the daily Special Express #s 10/11.

The following services will be cut from 1 Nov:

Special Express (air-conditioned) 11/10 Bangkok-Chiang Mai-Bangkok;

Express 115/116 Bangkok-Phitsanulok-Bangkok;

Express 143-144 Bangkok-Ubon Ratchathani-Bangkok.

On the railway website, the northern timetable is not available. If I look at trains from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and then from Bangkok to Nakhon Sawan, its gives a confusing picture, some trains that are due to go to Chiang Mai but will not from November 1st will still go to Nakhon Sawan. I got the g/f to ring the station here at Nakhon Sawan and they have told her that on the week following the 1st November everything is as today, nothing is changing!

On the railway website, the northern timetable is not available. If I look at trains from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and then from Bangkok to Nakhon Sawan, its gives a confusing picture, some trains that are due to go to Chiang Mai but will not from November 1st will still go to Nakhon Sawan. I got the g/f to ring the station here at Nakhon Sawan and they have told her that on the week following the 1st November everything is as today, nothing is changing!

With total respect to the gf and the purported info from an SRT employee at NS station this is the press release from the SRT available on their website confirming the cancellation of the above mentioned services. http://www.railway.co.th/srt/pr/news/viewshownews.asp?idnews=%201159 It is prominently linked on the front page of the SRT site, http://www.railway.co.th/home/

Perhaps call the SRT hotline number 1690 and see what BKK SRT has to say?

Hope it's the rattletrap icelandic-aircon Sprinter-service which gets the chop !

Sad that they can't manage to repair/replace coaches and locomotives fast-enough, to even maintain the SRT's current charming colonial-era railway-network, doesn't bode well for the start-up of the promised high-speed services.