Airport Rail Link adds two trains from Suvarnabhumi to cope with surge in passengers
By Coconuts Bangkok


Photo: Nog

BANGKOK: -- The Airport Rail Link has added two trains to its late night service from Suvarnabhumi Airport to cope with the rise in passenger numbers.

Pakorn Tangjetsakao, acting CEO of SRT Electrified Train Company Limited, the operator of the system, revealed that the daily service has been extended past midnight.

The extra trains depart from the airport at 12:15 am and 12:30 am and travel non-stop to Phayathai Station.

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co//2015/02/24/airport-rail-link-adds-two-trains-suvarnabhumi-cope-surge-passengers-3


-- Coconuts Bangkok 2015-02-24

And Phayathai BTS will be closed. Last time I tried to change from BTS to ARL, it was about 11:35 and the gate to the connection was already closed. Everyone had to go down to the street and back up the ARL stairs to make the connection. These trains will arrive at Phayathai after the last BTS train. But at least it gives you extra time to avoid using taxis. The flights I have been taking in recent times always seem to leave or arrive in the middle of the night.

Hopefully another (small) nail in the coffin of the Swampy taxi mafia.

How will this ease crowding?

Late at night the trains are not crowded at all.

Great for me. Anything to avoid the taxi mess at Swampy.

I always arrive on the late DELTA flight from Tokyo, so it would be nice to try this service versus taxi. Any suggestions on restaurants and hotels near Phayathai Station? It's an area I have not explored.

Any other news of possibly a later connection to Airport Rail Link for maybe 01:00 am? BTS, too?

The trains will be off white/yellow brown tan in colour due to complete lack of cleaning whatsoever and virtually falling to bits. So much so that travellers are advsied to 'Travel at their Own Risk' by the SRT = State (of disrepair) Railway of Thailand

I gave up on the Rail Link after they ended the Express service.

Just a white elephant, the Makkasan terminal sitting in the middle of nowhere.

The ARL as a whole is not a white elephant, in fact it is very popular.

Makkasan, I agree, is perhaps the dumbest white elephant I have ever seen. There is a massive glass building pumped full of aircon, with cleaners mopping up after non existant passengers and all the while a few meters away waiting for a train there are hundreds of passengers sweating their pants off standing in what can be best described as a huge cow shed with almost no ventilation.

Eventually the area around Makkasn will be developed - there is a LOT of land for commercial and residential developments.

Just a pity they didn't wait till the land around Makkasn was developed before building the 'airport terminal', but as we all know someone made an awful lot of money skimming the money from building Makkasan.

The OP says "non-stop to Phayathai Station". So has the Express Service been resumed, or is it just these two post-midnight trains?

'Don't think an extra 30mins at midnight is going to change the landscape that much. Most of the midnight rush at Suv. arrives too late to get through immigration, collect bags, make their way to the basement, and catch a 12:30 train. Now if someone could piece together keeping the ARL running 'til around 1:30 AND BTS running until, say, 3AM, THEN they'd HAVE something! But of course that isn't gonna' happen.

The OP says "non-stop to Phayathai Station". So has the Express Service been resumed, or is it just these two post-midnight trains?

'Don't think an extra 30mins at midnight is going to change the landscape that much. Most of the midnight rush at Suv. arrives too late to get through immigration, collect bags, make their way to the basement, and catch a 12:30 train. Now if someone could piece together keeping the ARL running 'til around 1:30 AND BTS running until, say, 3AM, THEN they'd HAVE something! But of course that isn't gonna' happen.

My question exactly. Have they reopened the express service only for the two late night trains, or have they also resumed express service to Phyathai during the day?

The answer to the above question is NO... they have no resumed the regular express line during day or evening times. They had just added two late night special trains.

But as of now, they've turned around and canceled those two late night trains. So back to where things started.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/810843-airport-rail-link-to-resume-normal-operation-hours-due-to-deficit/

Thanks for the update!