Tradition vs Modernisation: What to do about the lovely old Siamese railways?

[anon4546543]

Back to the topic.  Thailand has wonderful train stations and I hope they can be maintained

[cyberfarang]

Back when I was a child in England, my family used to travel by train, steam trains back in those days, from London to Leeds a lot, distance about 200 miles. Journey took over 5 hours each way. These days the same journey by train can take less than 2 hours.

 

So although very nostalgic and those times are romanticised in the history books,  this is where the old transport technology belongs, in the history books and museums.

[hansnl]

14 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

One of the things many people seem to forget is that the HST tracks will very likely not follow exactly the route of the present metre gauge system. Much of it, if not all, may be on a different permanent way. 

When butcher Beeching axed many of the rural lines in the UK in the 1960s, which were comprehensive and went all over the UK, the change in those days was from "dirty" steam power to dieselisation which was an improvement. . In Thailand's case, they have diesel power, most of which is from the last century, and the main rolling stock fleet is very old. many of the rural stations hearken back to an England (or country of choice) of the 1930s. Many tourist enjoy a trip on Thai trains where they have the time to watch the scenery go by at 50mph not 200mph or more.

There may be room for both systems.

 

There is no room for two systems.

One will suck the other dry, and no system will make a profit.

In France the old system was gutted to get enough users of the new system.

Now both make no profit.

 

About butcher Beecham, his work was subsidised by car & oil companies.

Same in the US, lines were bought by car companies and closed down.

And now, private companies running trains, and via via costing the taxpayers huge amounts of money, while tickets cost a bundle.

 

The upgrading of the Thai rail system is a good thing.

The government should concentrate on that, and forget about HSL for the next 20 years.

The low cost airways business is too strong.

Edited April 14, 2017 by hansnl

[saminoz]

They'll probably hand them over to some crony of the government in a closed deal who will then systematically fail to maintain them, charge farang 10 times what Thais pay to look at the rapidly deteriorating system and then, ultimately blame someone else for the monumental failure.

[overherebc]

18 minutes ago, saminoz said:

They'll probably hand them over to some crony of the government in a closed deal who will then systematically fail to maintain them, charge farang 10 times what Thais pay to look at the rapidly deteriorating system and then, ultimately blame someone else for the monumental failure.

The first two photographs in the OP show a station that must be kept as it is.

I don't know where it is or I missed that in the post.

[aslimversgwm]

9 hours ago, nisakiman said:

I used to love the steam trains. When I was a boy, eight or nine, I had quite a long journey to school - a mile walk to the train station, half an hour train journey, then two buses to within a quarter mile of my school. (Can you imagine any child of eight doing that journey on his own these days? Every day?) The train was the bit I enjoyed most. A great metallic monster huffing and puffing into the station, hissing and belching steam and smoke! And the wheels struggling to gain purchase on the rails as power was applied. Wonderful! And on the journey, I'd stick my head out of the window and imbibe the smell of the coal burning, and get smuts in my eyes from the belching behemoth that was pulling us. Nostalgia writ large!

 

Diesel locomotives and electric trains just don't cut it.

 

The golden age of steam!

 

Ha! Showing my age here! :)

But an absolutely spot on narrative description of the age of steam - I'm that old too - nearly 74!

Please, please Thailand do preserve your old locos and traditional buildings - as already mentioned they are great tourist attractions throughout the world. It'll make you money - think on!

[NoshowJones]

12 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

Is this something like what you seek?

http://www.westcoastrailways.co.uk/jacobite/jacobite-steam-train-details.cfm

I went on that train a few years ago and yes, it was brilliant.

[Golden Triangle]

I love traveling on the Thai railways as they are today, preferably 3rd class, I have done a fair bit of traveling on the railways here and (When I used to smoke) to be able to sit on the stairs by the doors with my camera and a ciggy or go right to the end of the train and do the same, great stuff  I know that the railways need updating but please keep some of the old stuff, not everyone wants to sit in the clinical A/C super fast trains of today. 

[aslimversgwm]

1 hour ago, Golden Triangle said:

I love traveling on the Thai railways as they are today, preferably 3rd class, I have done a fair bit of traveling on the railways here and (When I used to smoke) to be able to sit on the stairs by the doors with my camera and a ciggy or go right to the end of the train and do the same, great stuff  I know that the railways need updating but please keep some of the old stuff, not everyone wants to sit in the clinical A/C super fast trains of today. 

Agreed but I must admit when I tried the then new Shanghai to Beijing bullet train back in 2012 it was really quite exciting travelling at its restricted speed of 300+ Kph! Wow - so smooth, so luxurious - we went 1st class for a bit of extra space - it's certainly the way to go for railways of the future together with the maglev and maybe the hyperloop trains in the next decade or 2.

[Golden Triangle]

2 minutes ago, aslimversgwm said:

Agreed but I must admit when I tried the then new Shanghai to Beijing bullet train back in 2012 it was really quite exciting travelling at its restricted speed of 300+ Kph! Wow - so smooth, so luxurious - we went 1st class for a bit of extra space - it's certainly the way to go for railways of the future together with the maglev and maybe the hyperloop trains in the next decade or 2.

Can't argue with that  I have done the Eurostar a couple of times as well, not done the bullet train but I'm pretty sure it's a fairly unique experience as well, a bit like today's Thai trains   

[tso310]

If there is one section of Thai officialdom that seems to take pride in their job its the station masters particularly those in smaller stations. Many seem clean with well arranged and colourful flowers adorning the platforms. 

[mrfill]

6 hours ago, hansnl said:

There is no room for two systems.

One will suck the other dry, and no system will make a profit.

In France the old system was gutted to get enough users of the new system.

Now both make no profit.

 

About butcher Beecham, his work was subsidised by car & oil companies.

Same in the US, lines were bought by car companies and closed down.

And now, private companies running trains, and via via costing the taxpayers huge amounts of money, while tickets cost a bundle.

 

The upgrading of the Thai rail system is a good thing.

The government should concentrate on that, and forget about HSL for the next 20 years.

The low cost airways business is too strong.

Beeching's axe was not subsidised by car and oil companies.

Beeching (an ICI executive) was employed by Ernest Marples, the then Minister of Transport, who happened to own the largest road building company - Tarmac Ltd. It so happened that with Marples in charge the government decided that motorways should be the way ahead and trains had to be reduced to a skeleton.

And guess which company got the lion's share of the motorway building campaign??? Reminiscent of the way things are done in Thailand now....

[toofarnorth]

20 hours ago, spiderorchid said:

And thanks to the moderators who have allowed nostalgic posts

...and Pendennis Castle is not an inactive post.   I just looked up 4079 in my Combined Volume  BR locomotives 1959 and saw her that year. Oh and I brought the loco book out here with me. As for the Pilbara and Hammersley Iron , I worked there in 1971 for Australian Aerial Mapping.  Am I digressing ?

[overherebc]

1 hour ago, toofarnorth said:

...and Pendennis Castle is not an inactive post.   I just looked up 4079 in my Combined Volume  BR locomotives 1959 and saw her that year. Oh and I brought the loco book out here with me. As for the Pilbara and Hammersley Iron , I worked there in 1971 for Australian Aerial Mapping.  Am I digressing ?

Some lines in UK actually had a nurse on board whose main job was to remove cinder bits from the eyes of people like me who used to love sticking their head out of the windows.

???

[Prbkk]

19 hours ago, nisakiman said:

I used to love the steam trains. When I was a boy, eight or nine, I had quite a long journey to school - a mile walk to the train station, half an hour train journey, then two buses to within a quarter mile of my school. (Can you imagine any child of eight doing that journey on his own these days? Every day?) The train was the bit I enjoyed most. A great metallic monster huffing and puffing into the station, hissing and belching steam and smoke! And the wheels struggling to gain purchase on the rails as power was applied. Wonderful! And on the journey, I'd stick my head out of the window and imbibe the smell of the coal burning, and get smuts in my eyes from the belching behemoth that was pulling us. Nostalgia writ large!

 

Diesel locomotives and electric trains just don't cut it.

 

The golden age of steam!

 

Ha! Showing my age here! :)

And that is why there is such nostalgia for British trains. It's interesting though that so many young people are interested in train travel these days, and a great thing. I do quite a few trips every year, mostly in Europe ...young people ( under 60) are always keen to chat and their thrill about trains is genuine.

As for Thailand,  arrival by train was the first sight of the country for many , usually ex Singapore via Butterworth. Arriving in Bangkok at dawn was quite magical.

Maintaining as much of the old stations is imperative, one of the key reasons for the resurgence of interest in rail travel in other countries. The UK lost much but kept a lot, France is rather blessed, Germany less so. New York ripped out Penn Station back in the 60s and has regretted it ever since.