Chiang Mai is the first city to get a high-speed train
Chiang Mai, the main gateway to Thailand's northern destinations, will be the first city to receive a high-speed rail link to Bangkok.
Chiang Mai Governor Thanin Supasaen said the project is expected to be completed in three years. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has already approved the high-speed rail project dubbed 'the northern land gate', which the governor has presented to her.
Once the project is completed, Chiang Mai will turn into a transportation and logistics hub for the entire north. It will further strengthen the city's position as the second largest city after Bangkok. The rail link is expected to be completed in 2017.
Other logistics projects such as ring roads and Chiang Mai Airport will also be upgraded in order to be ready for the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community in autumn 2015.
The high-speed rail link connecting Chiang Mai to Bangkok will be a total of 745 km long, serving 13 stations in 11 provinces. The aim is that a train journey from Chiang Mai to Bangkok will not exceed 3,5 hours. Officials also claim the trains will be capable of carrying as many as 34.800 passengers daily. The trains will run at a speed of 250 km/h. The high-speed train is the most efficient and environmentally friendly means of transport.
The provincial government of Chiang Mai expects that the construction of the line will boost tourism to the area.
Five high-speed rail projects are planned in Thailand. The other four routes are:
- Bangkok–Nong Khai
- Bangkok–Ubon Ratchathani
- Bangkok–Rayong
- Bangkok–Padang Besar
Source: TTR Weekly
If I may give a tip; don't take a train from Italy called Fyra. Not ready in 2017 and speeds that have been requested will not be achieved either.
The mayor of Chiang Mai is telling a lie. Not Chiang Mai is the first city to get a connection with Bangkok, but Ayutthaya.
Chinese experts have advised starting with the 54-kilometer route between Bangkok and Ayutthaya as Thailand targets the World Expo in 2020.
A high-speed line in Thailand will never be able to compete against the low budget airlines that already exist. The current SRT (State Railway of Thailand) is already suffering from huge losses and overdue maintenance. Speed trains require "high maintenance", a completely unknown concept in this country. A disaster in the making (which will undoubtedly make a lot of directors even richer). Undoubtedly an idea skyped in from Dubai.
If I want to go to Paris from Amsterdam with the Thalys, I often lose more than with KLM. Yet there is a market for it. It simply saves the hours at the airport and the transfers. And as for high maintenance, we still haven't managed that in the Netherlands on the HSL, some 35 years after France, and I dare to predict that we will be overtaken by Thailand.
Cor Verhoef,
I do want to add something. I'm afraid it's the beginning of the dismantling
from a beautiful scenic area Chiangmai,Chiang rai,Mae Hong Son.
Where now that area still has its own character. Will that over the years especially
Chiangmai will become a kind of second Bangkok. Everything built up with bungalo parks,
apartment buildings, hotels and office buildings. The more Bangkok is flooded. All the more moving that way. Just as an example, when it became known that there would be a high-speed line to Pattaya and the surrounding area, land prices and house prices skyrocketed. What they still don't understand is that because of all that construction, the water will no longer simply disappear naturally.
That they also end up with their feet in the water, just like in Bangkok.
I will (fortunately) not experience it again.
J. Jordan.
high-speed line to Chiang Mai NOT to Chiang Rai and certainly not to Mae Hong Son, just like the 1000 bends road with the high-speed train to MHS.
In 25 years (used to be a song in the Netherlands) and that's how it will be here.
Whahahaha!! In Europe we are not even able to realize a decent high-speed connection between Amsterdam and Brussels.
And then here an HS train over a stretch of about 700 km??? In 3 years?? I think someone got heat stroke.
That will not happen in the coming decades. And if you come here for approx. Eur. 62 can fly from Bkk to Chiangmai then you only have to use the back of a cigar box to calculate that such an investment in completely new track (current track completely unsuitable) and trains will never be profitable. Even if the minimum daily wage is TBH 300,-!!
For me as a tourist it has a kind of rather not feeling. It was always wonderful to have that pleasant, relaxed feeling when traveling through Thailand. Plane to Bangkok by bike, train to Chiang Mai and from there on the road and freedom. To ever be locked up in such a modern clinical container seems like nothing to me and contradicts many of what I see as the qualities of Thailand. Just the train journey for twenty or twenty-four hours, whichever it is, was already a pleasure with the people you slowly get to know in your compartment and surroundings, sleeping in the quite comfortable bunks, stops at rural stations, food on board and the landscape that passes you by steadily, wonderful. Fortunately, it won't be that fast, but for me, all that HSL stuff isn't necessary.
A rather fantastic story in the TTR Weekly.
-Building a high-speed line of 745 kilometers including all protections etc in 3 years time is an impossibility. To be able to meet that deadline – however fantastic – one should already have started now!
-3,5 hours travel time at a speed of 250 kilometers and stopping 13 times over this distance is also not possible at all.
– That the high-speed train is the most environmentally friendly means of transport is of course also nonsense. That is of course still the "normal" train.
More tourists in Chiang Mai? It has already become terribly crowded in the last 10 years and more will certainly decrease the attractiveness.