At the beginning of August, Thai National Railways presented to the public for the first time the future trains that will run on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai line before the end of the year. From here September 2017They will equip the lines to Hat Yai in the South, as well as Nakhon Ratchasima and Ubon Ratchathani in the North East. Spacious, modern and equipped with aircraft-style seats with video screen and USB socket integrated, the new convoys have everything to seduce the most demanding travellers. Above all, they take Thai railways from the 19th to the 21st century. Decades of under-investment have made the Kingdom's railways one of the most expensive in the world. the worst in Asia. Inexpensive but totally dilapidated and incredibly slow.
They took Thai railways from the 19th to the 21st century
The Thai government is now investing heavily in modernising its network. Two high-speed power lines - hardly what you would call high-speed trains - are currently under construction between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima, the country's second largest city, and between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
The first line will be built withaid from Chinatrains running at 180 km/h on average on a line that will run to Nakhon Ratchasima and then northwards to connect with the new high-speed line linking Nong Khai, on the border with Laos, with Vientiane and Kunming in China.
The second 650 km line was built in partnership with Japan and will bring the capital of Northern Thailand to trains travelling at 200 kph. By 2021, Chiang Mai should be 5 hours from Bangkok with the opening of part of the line. After 2023, Chiang Mai will be just 3.5 hours from Bangkok.
There are also plans for a high-speed train between Bangkok and Pattaya/Hua Hin, but the project is still at the study stage.
Further south, in Malaysia, real progress were seen with the launch in 2010 of the first fully electrified line along the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula. The fast, comfortable trains travel at an average speed of 160 km/h. They link Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh, Penang (Butterworth) and Padang Besar on the border with Thailand. Trains take 2 hours 30 minutes between Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh and 3 hours 15 minutes between Ipoh and the Thai border. The electrified line now continues to Malacca from Kuala Lumpur, putting the two cities within two hours of each other.
A brand new high-speed line will link Kuala Lumpur to Singapore in 90 minutes
In July this year, the governments of Malaysia and Singapore finally signed the memorandum of understanding for the construction of thea brand new high-speed line linking Kuala Lumpur to Singapore in 90 minutes with trains travelling at 270 km/h. Studies are being finalised with a view to a bilateral agreement at the end of the year. start of work in 2017. The opening of the line, initially scheduled for 2020, has since been postponed. pushed back to 2026.
In Indonesia, three major projects are currently being launched. The first, a high-speed line built by a Chinese consortium, will link Jakarta to Bandung, the capital of West Java, 150 km to the east of the Indonesian capital. Originally scheduled for 2019, the line is not expected to be completed until 2020, with a journey time of 45 minutes instead of the current 3h or even 3h30... Japan has just been awarded the concession to build another high-speed line in Indonesia, this time linking Jakarta to Surabaya, the country's second city, 750 km from the capital. The future high-speed line would reduce the total journey time to five hours from the current 10 hours. The project is due to start next year, with a commissioning around 2023.
Another major project is the construction of a railway line linking the main cities on the island of Sumatra, the second most populous in Indonesia. China is lining up to finance this 2,160 km line, which will not see the light of day for another dozen years.
