History of the railway in Thailand

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The history of the railroad in Thailand begins with the opening of the Bangkok – Samut Prakan (Paknam) railway on April 11, 1893.

Monument locomotive in front of Chachoengsao station

prehistory

The first railway projects, which were discussed from the 1840s onwards, aimed at a connection between the then British Burma and the Chinese market, which should be carried out via northern Thailand for reasons of the more accessible terrain, a project that operated in different variations until the 1880s, but never materialized. A second, early-discussed railway project was to cross the Isthmus of Kra , the narrowest point on the Malay Peninsula, with a train, because the Kra Canal , which had been planned since the 17th century, had proven to be technically impracticable. Since the British feared for the importance of Singapore , this railway was not built either, although the Siamese government had given its approval in 1859.

In 1856 the King of Thailand received a model train as a gift from Queen Victoria , which is now on display in the Bangkok National Museum. In 1871, King Chulalongkorn the Great (Rama V) , who had ruled since 1868, used the railways for the first time during state visits to Java and British India . The Dutch colonial administration had put the first railway in Southeast Asia into operation on Java in 1864.

First projects

In the 1880s, the Siamese government granted various private consortia concessions to build railways. However, the majority of these consortia turned out to be speculative companies that never even came to the start of construction for the route that was licensed to them. Ultimately, however, Thailand's first operational railway emerged from such a privately financed initiative: On April 11, 1893, the meter-gauge line Bangkok – Samut Prakan (Paknam) was opened by the king. He personally broke ground for the construction work in 1891.

State railway

The activities to build a railway network were initially coordinated in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , since all the technology and knowledge that was required could only be imported from abroad. In 1890 responsibility shifted to the Ministry of Public Works , where it was organized as the "Royal Railway Department" (RRD).

In 1888 the government commissioned Sir Andrew Clarke to draw up plans for a railway network. This was available in 1890. In November 1888, the railway engineer Karl Bethge von Krupp came to Thailand and received these plans for assessment from the Thai government . Both agreed in favor of building a line from Bangkok via Saraburi to Korat (today: Nakhon Ratchasima ). The Thai government appointed Bethge , who had previously been promoted to the Royal Prussian Building Council in Germany , into the Thai civil service. He also became head of the RRD in 1890. This was a foreign policy move to preserve Thai neutrality between the neighboring competing colonial powers Great Britain ( India , Burma, Malaya , Singapore) and France ( Indochina ) and thus Thai independence.

Northeast Railway

In 1891 the Nakhon Ratchasima Railway Company , the majority of which was owned by the state, was established by law with the aim of building a railway from Bangkok to Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima) in standard gauge with 1435 mm. Contrary to Bethge's advice, the work was awarded to the English company Murray Campbell as the cheapest bidder. After two years of preparation, King Chulalongkorn proclaimed the construction of the northeast railway on March 9, 1892 . The tools used for the first groundbreaking ceremony, a richly decorated spade and the wheelbarrow that went with it, are now also on display in the Bangkok National Museum. George Murray Campbell was in charge of the building .

Karl Bethge hired further German engineers for the railway construction. For example, in 1899 the official gazettes of the Prussian State Railways advertised the position of deputy workshop manager of the “Royal Siamese State Railways”. Hermann Gehrts (1854–1914) and Luis Weiler (1836–1918), both from the Prussian State Railways . Weiler reported on his work in numerous letters to his father, who was also a railway engineer. Almost all of them have been preserved and are now in the archive of the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

The railway administration terminated the contract with the English company on September 1, 1896, as it did not carry out the construction work in accordance with the contract. The work was now continued under their own direction. At the same time, the Nakhon Ratchasima Railway Company was nationalized and converted into a state railway administration . At that time, the route was 135 kilometers long. In December 1896, King Chulalongkorn took the opportunity to take the train to the Peak to drive. He wrote his name on the rock on an overhanging rock at 136.5 km. The badly weathered lettering can still be seen today. On March 26, 1897, the first section from Bangkok to Ayutthaya was opened. This date is now considered the "official birthday" of the Thai State Railways . Before the railway opened, a journey between Bangkok and Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima) took 5 days - now only 6 hours.

Network expansion

On February 24, 1898, the government took the decision in principle to build all main lines in the country as state railways. Karl Bethge died of cholera in 1900 ; his successor, Hermann Gehrts, planned to retire in 1904. In the spring of 1904, Luis Weiler in Haifa , where he was working on the construction of the Hejaz Railway , was appointed General Director of the Thai Railway . When he took up his position, the northeast runway was completed.

German companies such as Henschel and Krupp performed particularly well in the delivery of the locomotives . In 1909 a total of 49 locomotives from German production drove for the Thai state railway. Wagons were mainly imported from Germany, Belgium , the Netherlands and Great Britain.

With the completion of the work on the Northeast Railway, the planning under Karl Bethge began for the route of the Southern Railway to Phetchaburi . Construction began in April 1900. In contrast to the previously established Thai railway network, east of the Chao Phraya , which in standard gauge was built, the state railway who chose this meter gauge to a later seamless transition to also meter gauge railways in Burma and Malaya easier. This was all the easier as the southern runway was initially unable to get a rail connection to the rest of the network, as a bridge over the Chao Phraya was still missing. The line therefore did not start from Bangkok's main train station, Hua Lamphong , but received its own terminus in Thonburi , Thonburi station . Its entrance building was designed in the style of brick expressionism by the German architect Karl Siegfried Döhring .

Another project was the Eastern Railway . In 1901 the measurement of the route was ordered. However, both the southern and eastern railways had potential for foreign policy conflict: the south and west of Thailand belonged to the British, the east to the French area of ​​interest. The French also viewed a Thai railway construction moving towards Indochina as a threat. When a revolt broke out shortly afterwards in northern Thailand, the state therefore initially concentrated its resources on building the northern railway (Bangkok - Chiang Mai ).

North runway

Bangkok-Hua Lamphong station concourse from 1916

All efforts were therefore directed towards the construction of the northern railway, which was also not in the interests of the European colonial powers. When completed, it was 661 kilometers long. Since all the lines in Thailand were kilometers from Bangkok and they used the existing northeast railway to Ban Bachi Junction , their terminus is 751 km. In the first days of 1908 it was completed as far as Phitsanulok at kilometer 389. On November 11th, Coronation Day, a further 67 kilometers of the northern line could be opened. Thus, a total of 844 kilometers of line were now in operation in Thailand.

At that time there were 228 Europeans in the Thai civil service, 45 of them German and 35 alone with the railways. The German architect Karl Siegfried Döhring was responsible for the design and construction of numerous reception buildings built at the time .

Thailand insisted on state railway construction after the previous experience and tried to get a loan for the further construction of the southern railway in Europe. As the German Empire got closer to this idea, Great Britain accelerated its negotiations with Thailand. It strove to rule southern Thailand - at least economically - and was afraid of German influence on this railway line. This led to two treaties between Great Britain and Thailand, both signed on March 10, 1909. One regulated questions of state law, in particular the assignment of territory in southern Thailand to Malaysia . The second regulated the construction of the southern runway. With this second contract, the UK committed a £ 4m loan for the project. To eliminate any German influence, a second Thai state railway administration was founded under the British Henry Gittens (it was called from 1913: "Southern RRD") because the existing RRD was headed by the German Karl Bethge. The latter was called from 1912 "Northern RRD". In the spring of 1909, the government stopped building the northern runway and concentrated its efforts entirely on building the southern runway and measures to improve the railway infrastructure in Bangkok: in 1910 a new freight station was opened there, which was also a transshipment station between river boats and the railway. The foundation stone for Bangkok's new main train station, Hua Lamphong, was also laid. The steel construction of the reception hall came from German production and was built by an Italian company. In 1916 the new main station was opened.

It was not until 1912 that the northern line was continued. The 1.4 kilometer long Khun-Tan tunnel was required between Lampang and Chiang Mai . The German engineer Emil Eisenhofer was in charge of its creation . When Eisenhofer died very old in 1962, he was buried at the northern exit of the Khun Tan tunnel.

First World War

After the start of the First World War many German engineers to the German army were called and had to leave the country. This hindered the construction of the Northern RRD railway considerably. On the other hand, good progress was made in the construction of the southern runway, under the technical direction of the British.

After 1914, the Southern RRD united all meter-gauge routes, i.e. the entire network south and west of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya , while the Northern RRD had to cede the meter-gauge line from Bangkok-Thonburi to Phetchaburi to the southern state railway, which had already been built under their leadership. They now operated exclusively the standard gauge network north and east of the river. This was not only technically sensible, but also a political balancing act of Thailand, which was initially neutral until 1917 in World War I : The northern RRD worked under the German director Karl Bethgen , the southern under the British Henry Gittens , whose countries of origin were now opponents of the war.

Thailand was unable to maintain its initial neutrality in the long term. In order not to get into trouble when the Entente entered the war , the railway was also precisely prepared: The remaining German engineers and the German director of the northern state railway were immediately arrested after Thailand declared war on Germany on July 22, 1917, before they had a chance to sabotage the railroad in some way . Among the internees was Luis Weiler, who had recently been awarded the White Elephant Order, Second Class. Released early in 1918 from internment, Weiler left the country with the approval of the Thai government as a seriously ill man and died on the return journey on a Danish ship off the east coast of Africa.

On the other hand, Thailand had no interest in giving the British the opportunity to access the northern state railway. Therefore, Prince Purachatra was appointed general commissioner of the two state railways that were united under him on June 27, 1917. This was the first time that a Thai was appointed to the helm of the Thai State Railways. The now "Royal State Railways" (RSR) called state railway was subordinate to the Ministry of Communication.

Interwar period

In the mid-1920s, Thailand ordered the first diesel locomotive - from the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Factory in Winterthur - and a few years later it was used regularly. Diesel multiple units have also been running in suburban traffic from Bangkok since 1928 .

Night transport and sleeping cars were also introduced in the 1920s . Until then, long-distance journeys were interrupted for overnight stays. The RSR maintained hotels at large train stations for this purpose. The travel time from Bangkok to Penang was 31½ hours and to Chiang Mai 25½ hours.

In September 1919 the Thai government made the decision to standardize the two gauges of the state railway. The choice fell in favor of the meter gauge to which the standard gauge routes were re- gauged . For this purpose, a third track in meter gauge was first laid on the standard-gauge lines. In 1926, the entire network was navigable in meter gauge and the outer track for the standard gauge could now be dismantled. This was completed in 1929. In 1930 the Nakhon Ratchasima – Ubon Ratchathani line , an extension of the northeast line, was completed.

Between 1929 and 1931, 15 of the 28 locomotives ordered came from Germany from Henschel and Hanomag . The last delivery from German production took place in 1936.

In addition to the main lines of the state railway, numerous small and regional trams were built in the first half of the 20th century . Some were used for larger industrial plants, mines or forestry for freight transport, others were also intended for public transport. Some were already shut down and dismantled during the Second World War , when there was a high demand for railway material in order to be able to realize military-priority railway projects. Others ceased operations when trucks and buses increasingly took over transport services.

Second World War

After the Japanese Empire conquered Malaysia, Singapore , Thailand and Burma in World War II in 1941/1942 , the Thai government came to terms with the occupiers and entered the war on the Japanese side.

The Japanese generals sought rail links between the Gulf of Thailand and the west coast of the Malay Peninsula in order to avoid the risky sea ​​transport around the Malay Peninsula , around Singapore and through the Strait of Malacca, which is constantly endangered by their opponents ' submarines . They wanted to prepare strategically for the attack on British India . Two projects were carried out with great human sacrifice: the Thailand-Burma railway and the Chumphon – Khao Fachi railway across the Isthmus of Kra . Both routes were considered spoils of war by the victorious British . The latter route was demolished by the British immediately after the war. The Thailand-Burma Railway, on the other hand, sold the section of the line located in Thailand to Thailand and took it over by the state railway, which ultimately still operates it to Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi today .

In the final phase of the Second World War, many lines and railway systems were badly damaged by Allied air raids .

post war period

Large parts of the route network had to be completely rebuilt in the following years. After the political situation changed by the Cold War, this was done with the support of the USA . The USA also supported the construction of new lines. This includes the extension of the northeast railway, the Nakhon Ratchasima – Nong Khai railway line , which had been driven to Udon Thani during the war and has now been extended to the Mekong . This also includes a parallel line to the Northeast Railway, the Kaeng Khoi Junction – Bua Yai Junction , which serves to relieve the Nakhon Rachasima junction.

With the State Railway of Thailand Act (BE 2494 of 1951), the Thai State Railway ( RTGS : Kan Rot Fai Haeng Prathet Thai ; Thai การ รถไฟแห่ง ประเทศไทย , English State Railway of Thailand , SRT ) received its current name, with the English-language transcription initially "Thai State Railway" (TSR) was later changed to "State Railway of Thailand" (SRT).

Another series of new lines was built in the 1980s and 1990s. These served to connect the new ocean ports on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, Laem Chabang and Map Ta Phut to the rail network. These are the Chachoengsao Junction – Sattahip railway line and its extension in the hinterland, the Khlong Sip Kao – Kaeng Khoi railway line , which provides a direct connection from the coast to the Northern Railway and the Northeast Railway.

The last steam locomotives were decommissioned in 1982 and the 100th anniversary of the State Railroad was celebrated on March 26, 1997.

In 2009, the Nong Khai – Thanaleng railway was the first railway connection to Laos .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ In a comparable political situation, German loans had secured the financing of the Ottoman Empire for the Anatolian Railway , the Baghdad Railway and the Hejaz Railway .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 1 f.
  2. ^ A b c d Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 2.
  3. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 9 f.
  4. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 8.
  5. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 11.
  6. ^ Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (Ed.): Collection of the published official gazettes from October 21, 1899. Volume 3, No. 45. Announcement No. 437, p. 332.
  7. ^ A b c d Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 4.
  8. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 40.
  9. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 34.
  10. ^ A b c Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 42.
  11. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 41.
  12. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Pp. 42, 45.
  13. ^ A b c Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P. 3.
  14. ^ R. Ramaer: The Railways of Thailand . Bangkok 1994, ISBN 1-879155-28-1 , p. 81.
  15. ^ Whyte: Railway Atlas of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. P.56.
  16. ^ Whyte: The Railway Atlas. P. 94.
  17. ^ Whyte: The Railway Atlas. P. 67.