Suvarnabhumi ARL to increase service with more trains

[webfact]

ARL to increase service with more trains

BANGKOK, 8 October 2015 (NNT) – The Ministry of Transport has appointed the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) to proceed the purchase of more trains for the Airport Rail Link (ARL) service to accommodate more passengers.

The Minister of Transport Arkhom Termpittayapaisith has said after observing the operation of the ARL train service, connecting Suvarnabhumi Airport to central Bangkok run by SRT Electric Train Company (STRET), that the average number of passengers has reached 60,000 persons per day, exceeding the current operational capacity.

He said that additional trains will be required to enhance passenger service capacity, while the ARL now can only operate seven out of the total nine trains, as two are under maintenance until April 2016.

The new set of trains awaiting procurement consists of seven train sets with a total of 28 carriages. The new trains will help double the capacity, allowing service capacity to reach up to 120,000 passengers per day.

On this matter, the SRT governor Wuthichart Kalyanamitra has revealed that the SRT is now finalizing train specifications before proposing the details to the Public Debt Management Office by the end of this month.

He added that this procurement deal is expected to be finalized in December, and the new trains will be scheduled for delivery at early 2018, with a total budget of 4.8 billion baht, 4.4 billion of which is the price of the train and the remaining 400 million will be used on spare parts.

He has also stressed that there train specification lobbying, favoring any particular manufacturer, is non-existent. The proposed price of the new train sets is confirmed to be cheaper than the previous purchase.


-- NNT 2015-10-08

[rodknock]

how much money for the kick backs and brown bags?????

how does it take till april 2016 to do maintanance, is it a complete rehab.????

it takes 3 years to get some trains, why didn't they start the process years ago so the trains would be ready to handle all the passangers.

some wheres along the line some one will run out of money for all the train purchases. some excusses will be made.

[Prbkk]

how much money for the kick backs and brown bags?????

how does it take till april 2016 to do maintanance, is it a complete rehab.????

it takes 3 years to get some trains, why didn't they start the process years ago so the trains would be ready to handle all the passangers.

some wheres along the line some one will run out of money for all the train purchases. some excusses will be made.

Well, is the issue only with the trains out of service or is there a problem with the track as well? I recall some speculation/discussion about this last year but it appears no work has been done.

[Bob12345]

how much money for the kick backs and brown bags?????

how does it take till april 2016 to do maintanance, is it a complete rehab.????

it takes 3 years to get some trains, why didn't they start the process years ago so the trains would be ready to handle all the passangers.

some wheres along the line some one will run out of money for all the train purchases. some excusses will be made.

I believe to remember they were making a loss (till recently) which would explain why no new trains have been ordered earlier.

[ignis]

Are these 'new' trains the ones that don't fall over/off the line ?

[PeVee1st]

After a recent trip I would say the whole infrastructure is stuffed!!! From tickets machines not working, to trains slowing to take bends/ change direction & carriages damaged, the whole operation will be closed before 2018.

[teatree]

There was a report in the BK post the other day about the Makkasan check in service closing. The cost per check in customer amounted to something like 10,500 baht!

Thankfully they have finally seen sense and scrapped it.

Let's hope they see sense again and don't reinstate the express line service in the coming years.

What they are going to do with the station at Makkasan is another matter. Perhaps they can retrospectively claim it is a Damian Hirst art piece called "White Elephant".

Edited October 8, 2015 by teatree