The board of the State Railways of Thailand (SRT) has given a greenlight to a plan to procure 182 new train carriages, including spare parts, to replace aging rolling stock, which has been in use for more than 50 years.
SRT Governor Veeris Ammarapala said that the procurement, to cost an estimated 10.5 billion baht, is part of the plan to develop the transportation system in Thailand.
He said that the last time that the SRT procured 115 new train carriages was in 2017, when the number of train passengers had increased by about 700,000 in just one year, and passenger loads are predicted to increase to 1.84 million this year.
The new carriages will all be air-conditioned and will be put into service on 12 routes, among them Bangkok-Chiang Mai, Bangkok-Ubon Ratchathani, Bangkok-Sungai Kolok, Bangkok-Trang and Bangkok-Nakhon Si Thammarat.
The maximum speed of the new trains will be increased from 90kph to 120kph. All new carriages will be equipped with CCTV for better safety, while the doors will open and close automatically, he said.
The SRT governor said that the procurement will be in line with the SRT’s dual-track development project on nine routes, covering a distance of more than 1,500km, with an additional plan to procure 50 new locomotives.
