China-backed Thai railway construction to begin in September

[ExPratt]

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Thank you Prayuth for giving high speed railway to Thailand.

You are truly the father of modern Thailand modernization.

Pssstt, it isn't high speed, it was the former government that proposed high speed rail.

I thought the only rail projects the Chinese were interested in were high speed, both in Laos and Thailand. Gets kind of confusing I guess, with all of the different news reports over the years.

It makes life easy for them if they have a through route form China , but they would still build the Thai one. Don't forget these strategies cover decades.

Whats the issue with Laos construction ?

[jwongbkk]

i wonder how much of these monies will end up in the corrupt hands again...

alas!

[Bcgardener]

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Does anyone have a map of the propose Map at put route? Or will it go along the existing route?

Thanks

I put this on a thread the other day re the alignment

I'm interested to see the alignment they use. Because they are building the new Railway with Standard gauge it becomes problematic building using part of the old alignment. Standard practice if the old and new gauge is the same is to built one line or as much as you can build adjacent to the old track and divert traffic on the 1 new track , then rip out the old and build Track 2 on that alignment , you cannot do that if each tracks gauges are different. There is a way of doing it with dual gauge sleepers but its not cheap or easy. If they go for new alignment not on the old alignment the land acquisitions are very expensive and extremely time consuming

When you consider the time frame. They may break ground on the Formation and civils work later this year but I cannot see any significant progress with Track construction until mid 2016

I think you need to read the Op again:

With Chinese help, Bangkok plans to lay down two new dual track lines, part of a wider regional network........

It's also not clear whether the new tracks will be on SRT land (i.e. next to existing tracks) or will require new land acquisition all the way. At least part will be new as there is no existing line to Rayong, only to Sattahip. It would be nice to see a route map.

There actually is a narrow gauge line that runs past Sattahip, through Ban Chang and then on towards Maptaphut (the end of the new standard gauge line). Not sure where it actually ends though. There is even a station in Ban Chang but never seen a train there! The daily train from Bangkok finishes at Plutaluang (Sattahip). A great train trip if you like spending about 6 - 8 hours on a wooden bench instead of two hours in a bus.

[Jackson86]

i see this railway project as China's intention to pull Thailand to its side where SEA is concerned, due to the Thai military alliance with USA.

[Lee4Life]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Thank you Prayuth for giving high speed railway to Thailand.

You are truly the father of modern Thailand modernization.

Pssstt, it isn't high speed, it was the former government that proposed high speed rail.

I thought the only rail projects the Chinese were interested in were high speed, both in Laos and Thailand. Gets kind of confusing I guess, with all of the different news reports over the years.

It makes life easy for them if they have a through route form China , but they would still build the Thai one. Don't forget these strategies cover decades.

Whats the issue with Laos construction ?

The issue with the Laos construction is that the Chinese Government backed out of the initial agreement to build the railway, reportedly because they discovered it was not going to be financially feasible to build a railway through Laos as seventy percent of the railway will be tunnels and bridges. The Lao Gov. has now applied for funding through Chinese sources and say they are going to build the railway themselves. If you google this project you will see that the cost estimates are at 7.2 Billion U.S.

I don't really doubt that it could be done, and don't have the expertise to say whether or not it will be a financial success, I just wonder how it would affect the Thai Project if the Lao project isn't completed?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Lee4Life

[ExPratt]

It makes life easy for them if they have a through route form China , but they would still build the Thai one. Don't forget these strategies cover decades.

Whats the issue with Laos construction ?

The issue with the Laos construction is that the Chinese Government backed out of the initial agreement to build the railway, reportedly because they discovered it was not going to be financially feasible to build a railway through Laos as seventy percent of the railway will be tunnels and bridges. The Lao Gov. has now applied for funding through Chinese sources and say they are going to build the railway themselves. If you google this project you will see that the cost estimates are at 7.2 Billion U.S.

I don't really doubt that it could be done, and don't have the expertise to say whether or not it will be a financial success, I just wonder how it would affect the Thai Project if the Lao project isn't completed?

I had a Google myself and for 430 odd km of track for 7.2 is massively expensive. To give you an example the Malaysian double track project we finished late last year cost 3.5 Billion for 350K. The civiuls seem to be Massive. 72 Tunnels on the job and 150 odd bridges , not sue if they mean road over bridges or Rail viaduct , either way its a huge job and just the Civils work alone would take years would take years. Should not jeopardize the plans for Thailand though

[Gweiloman]

i wonder how much of these monies will end up in the corrupt hands again...

alas!

How dare you!! Don't you know that corruption is banned in this country? The old corrupt govt was removed solely and primarily because of their corrupt practices.

A brand new era is dawning for Thailand.

I'll let Clothee make the victorious pronouncements.