Translated and edited by Wacharapol Isaranont
The tragic train derailment in the early morning of October 5 in the resort town of Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, which killed seven people and injured nearly a hundred unsuspecting passengers, has raised a question of whether there will come a time when Thai people will ever have better, faster and safer rail services.
But, considering none of the top officials at the State Railway of Thailand, or SRT, or relevant ministers, so far, has come out to take responsibility for the train mishap, there's obviously little hope for improvement in the rail transport in the near future.
While our neighbors are moving heaven and earth to improve their rail systems, with Vietnam planning a 2,000-kilometer bullet train line from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and Malaysia constructing many double tracked rail lines, Thailand's rail transport does not seem to go anywhere after a hundred years of existence.
Thailand's rail system was established about 113 years ago during the reign of King Rama V, second in Asia after India. It was around the same period when Japan started its first rail services. Now that Japan has become a leading nation in rail transport, Thailand is now ranked among the few Asian countries with least developed rail systems.
Although there might have been efforts to improve the Thai rail system over the years after its establishment, such as the construction of double-tracked rail lines and investments in new locomotives and carriages, the rail system development seems to have been frozen in time since 1967.
As of today, there are 1,352 train carriages in the rail system, over 500 of which are left unused, and 256 locomotives, with the newest model having been used for thirteen years. Only 137 locomotives are currently in service, which prove to fall short of demand for daily operations.
Moreover, only 24 percent of the railroads are in good condition. While other countries have converted to using double-track railroads, Thailand railroads remain single-track. And the SRT just replaced traditional wooden railroad sleepers with concrete ones not long ago. Any hopes for the country to operate a high-speed train, therefore, are very slim, given that the system requires better railroad ties.
The State Railway of Thailand has been infamous for being a goldmine for corrupt politicians who abusively exploit vast areas of land under the SRT ownership. Could this be one of many reasons why the agency has failed to improve the rail system at all?
If the SRT was really happy with the fact that Thailand's rail system is still better than that of Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the future of Thai railway would definitely be a disaster.
Or can we just think positive and hope that what the SRT is doing is part of an effort to make the rail transport a historical heritage so that the Thai people can travel on the system that is preserved like what it was about a hundred years before?