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Thailand Railroads
The state-operated national rail system was started by King
Chulalongkorn, and the first section--from Bangkok to Ayutthaya--
was inaugurated in 1896. The line was extended to Nakhon
Ratchasima in 1910, and during the first decade of the century
work had already begun on other lines to the north and south. By
1941 well over four-fifths of the present-day rail system had
been opened.
After 1951 control of the railroads was vested by law in the
State Railway of Thailand (SRT), an autonomous agency. Through
1979 SRT had received a number of assistance loans from the World
Bank, as well as bilateral aid with which the line was first
rehabilitated and later modernized, including replacement of
steam locomotives by diesel units. In the early 1980s, SRT had
about 4,000 kilometers of meter-gauge track, all of it single
track except for a 90-kilometer section of double track running
north of Bangkok to near Ayutthaya. Four main interconnecting
lines originating in Bangkok ran to Chiang Mai (Northern Line),
Aranyaprathet (Eastern Line), Nong Khai and Ubon Ratchathani
(Northeastern Line), and the Malaysian border (Southern Line). A
number of branch lines were also in operation, including a line
constructed in the 1980s to link the Lan Krabu oil field in
Kamphaeng Phet Province to the Northern Line. Also under
construction in the mid-1980s was a link from Bangkok down the
eastern seaboard to Rayong, which was completed as far as
Sattahip in 1984.
Competition from developing road services had cut heavily
into railroad passenger and freight traffic, and the proportional
share of freight declined between 1968 and 1976 from 19 percent
to 11 percent. In the 1980s, however, the rail lines remained of
major importance in the transport of bulk commodities, such as
petroleum products, cement, and rice, over long distances.
Data as of September 1987
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