Perhaps what one remembers best about a third-class train ride in Thailand is the shower you take afterwards — the lumps of dust coming out of your nose, the grimy water running off your body and how washing your hair three times isn't enough to take the odour of metal away.
Video and photos by Patipat Janthong
Not only dirty but also slow, uncomfortable and often unreliable — not to mention sporadic cases of on-board crimes. Such is the image which has long stuck with Thailand's railway transportation. And when the National Council for Peace and Order signed a memorandum of understanding with China last year for the possible construction of a dual-track 734km Nong Khai-Nakhon Ratchasima-Kaeng Khoi-Map Ta Phut rail line, as well as a 133km track from Kaeng Khoi to Bangkok, the current, degraded state of Thai trains is in public focus again. If the project is realised, it will be the first major upgrade of the 124-year-old railway system.
On a recent trip from Bangkok to Nong Khai in non-air-conditioned third class, it was not hard to confirm that Thai trains are behind the times.
The military's eight-year strategy for revamping transport services is similar to the Yingluck Shinawatra government's 2 trillion baht infrastructure development proposals, with one difference — a change from high-speed railways to a slower dual-track ones. This dual-track will be an addition to the current single-track rail line, which will be used for domestic purposes.
The lumps of dust coming out of your nose is not an exaggeration; the third-class carriages come with hard benches and no air-conditioning, which have been in use for no less than 40 years. Despite the fact that in 1928 Thailand was the first country in Southeast Asia to use diesel electric locomotives, we are still going today, more than 80 years later, at an average speed of 90kph.
Slow train to Isan
The third-class train ticket to Nong-Khai was 253 baht but it took about 11 long hours, only 624km away. It would take almost two days to travel from Chiang Mai down to the country's southernmost station of Su-ngai Kolok, a border town in Narathiwat province. Impressively, the wheels started to roll exactly on time at 6.35pm. But that was only to stop at a side track five minutes after for almost half-an-hour. About 98% of Thai railways are still single-track rail lines, and such stops are necessary to let trains pass. With the government's planned dual-track trail, not only would there be no such delay, the tracks would be 1.435m standard gauge instead of the present 1m gauge, enabling the trains to go as fast as 160kph. The 873km-long standard-gauge railway initiative is roughly estimated to cost 350 billion baht.
Except for the way passengers were dressed and how almost everyone of them was busy on their smartphones, everything about the train ride could have been from half-a-century ago. With the rhythmic clicking of a ticket puncher, the ticket collector was still dressed in a traditional dark brown uniform with a peaked cap. As soon as the train left the bustle and city lights around Don Mueang and Rangsit and headed towards Ayutthaya, the ride would have felt like a pleasant journey back in time if it wasn't for the back-breaking benches, which became a torture after an hour or two. Benches near the doors are set sideways like that on the BTS, while the rest of the seats are in four-passenger bench booths. Even if you're not very tall, your knees would inevitably get intimate with those of the stranger across. Many chose to straighten their legs onto the facing benches as a signal for new passengers who had just arrived to seek seats elsewhere.
Despite the cool breeze outside that got more pleasant later into the night, the smell of metal and rust from every part of the carriage — ceiling, doors, window frames, handrails, etc — would seep into your clothes and skin and it was almost impossible to fall asleep. Because the doors connecting each carriage are usually left open, often a whirlpool of trash from the track below would be blown up and flew around the compartment.
After leaving Ayutthaya, the train headed east to Saraburi after the Ban Phachi junction, which splits into the Northern and Northeastern lines. Major stations like Kaeng Khoi Junction and Pak Chong saw a bustle of food vendors who file into the cars during a short stop and shout to draw passenger attention to their products even though it was nearing midnight.
By the time we reached Nakhon Ratchasima, food hawking on train was at its liveliest point.
A group of more than 10 vendors barged onto the train as if it was a guerrilla siege and their weapons were all types of food imaginable, fried rice with Thai basil, noodles with chicken, grilled pork or fried beef with sticky rice, rice porridge, Isan-style sausages, meatballs, etc.
Vendor Supat Sukasem said that people who live around the station had been making a living like this for decades and he doesn't look forward to the prospects of the government's new dual-track rail project.
Once the faster, more modernised train system is realised, he said, it will be the end of his and his friends' career and he doesn't know "how else to fund his children through university".
For passengers on trains, however, delicious food seemed of little comfort at this time of the night. Some brought mattresses and slept on the floor, while others filled the little space between two facing benches with their luggage, which became a temporary flat bed.
Adding to the journey back in time were the train's toilets. The sound of the tracks and the rustling of wind came up through the toilet hole and though each toilet has a big window for ventilation, the stench was horrible. Three extremely damp rolls of toilet paper hung on a colourful plastic rope making this the most tragic sight witnessed during the entire trip.
At around 2am, a few passengers got off at Khon Kaen and later at Udon Thani, two major provinces in Isan. The remaining passengers were mostly Lao, who stayed aboard till Nong Khai.
Toei Chantirat, a 30-year-old Lao man who works as a security guard in Bangkok, said he had to take time off to attend an urgent matter at home before rushing back to Bangkok. A mother and daughter, however, didn't seem to mind the tardiness of the train, which was taking them back to Vientiane after a holiday in Pattaya.
This will be short-lived, as the government's planned 1.435m standard gauge tracks will connect Bangkok with the Lao capital Vientiane, and with Kunming, the largest city in China's southwestern province of Yunnan.
The way back
For many passengers, Nong Khai is a point of departure to making it big in Bangkok. For Bangkokians, it is a return trip, and the long ride offered a much better view because it was during the day. As opposed to the cool breeze during the night trip, the air was hot and dusty. Going through a mostly dry northeastern landscape, leaves and dust were whipped up from the fields and would circulate through the carriage.
The most scenic view was when the train went on a stretch across Pasak Chonlasit Dam in Lopburi province.
Except for the rail line across the lake of the dam, which needs a new additional line for the new dual-track rail, most of the State Railway of Thailand-owned land surrounding the track along the planned route, an average of 40m to either side measured from the centre, is enough for a parallel construction of the dual-track line.
Many passengers were migrant workers on their way back to work in Bangkok. A little kid was travelling from Nong Khai with his grandparents to see a doctor in the capital.
The grandmother said that the boy had problems with nerves in his right hand since birth. After an operation, frequent trips to see doctors in Bangkok, which take three days, were necessary. The grandmother said that a faster train would make such trips more convenient, but added that she didn't mind the slow train that much. "This is slow, but it's also nice and safe."
Such a sight was in contrast to a stream of happy-looking tourists from Ayutthaya who were enjoying the rundown train not as a form of transportation but a nostalgic adventure.
As of now, the MoU between Thailand and China is for the countries to jointly take responsibility for surveying, design and construction cost assessment. While the investment structure is due to be settled later this month, the project will be confirmed in April.
The junta has said that co-operation with other countries, notably Japan and Korea, to build other railway routes is possible, with the ultimate aim of greater connectivity with neighbouring Asean nations.
But the Northeastern line is the one that's mostly likely to be revamped first. If the dual-track project is finished the Bangkok-Nong Khai trip could well be down to just four hours.
Let's hope this Northeastern rail line isn't just another castle in the air but a solid foundation for a better nationwide railway transportation system, and a better way of life for people in the future.
In 1928, Thailand was the first country in Southeast Asia to use diesel electric locomotives.
An arduous ride in a third-class compartment.
