Robert Schwandl’s Urban Rail Blog: BANGKOK

Green Line starting its southbound service at Mo Chit

But now in Bangkok, I thought I should
write down some thoughts while I’m sitting at Don Mueang Airport
waiting for my flight to Kuala Lumpur.

I have to admit that Bangkok did not
conquer my heart, neither as a city (loud, polluted, anti-pedestrian,
difficult to move from one place to the other and except for some
fanastic tourist sites not really a ‘beautiful’ place). But as usual,
I’ll limit my observations to the public transport system and
especially urban rail.

Riverboat on the Chao Phraya River

Well, to start with, Bangkok doesn’t
really have a transport “system”, it rather has an endless
choice of different offers which are as badly integrated as can be.
There are two metro operators (well actually three if you count the
airport line as metro) which at least announce that at certain
stations you can interchange with the other metro. But no sort of
integrated ticketing has been achieved yet, not even a single
stored-value card which could be used on different modes (apparently
the have been working on this, but as of now, it does not exist). 

BTS station Asok, with a hint to interchange with MRT

Either metro system is of limited use for the typical tourist, as
none goes into the older part where most tourist attractions are
located (this will change finally in 1-2 years with the extension of
the Blue Line). If you count shopping malls as tourist attractions,
then BTS station Siam serves them well. The rest of the public
transport “system” are many buses hard to understand where
they go, but that’s always a problem in a foreign place, but the
worst thing about the buses is that many of them seem like 50 years
old and throw out extreme clouds of exhaust fumes. They usually have
all windows open, and all doors too. Another airy option are the
tuk-tuk taxis and for the brave ones, you can hire a motorbike taxi,
which you can recognise by the driver’s orange vest waiting at every
street corner. Many locals arrive on them at metro stations. And not
to forget the riverboats which are a nice way to approach the city
centre for the first time with the “Orange Flag” boats
starting northwards from Central Piers next to Saphan Taksin BTS
station. Try it from here for a seat, because as a standee you won’t
be able to see anything as they are covered.

Typical bus still frequently seen

BTS

The BTS Skytrain is the older of the
two metro systems. As of now, it is entirely elevated and thus
provides you with great views of the city, but only if you’re lucky –
they are either very packed and you have no view through the crowd;
they mostly carry full advertising wraps, so the view through the
already small windows is restricted; or if you’re too tall, even the
tiny door windows are too low – so try to ride during off-peak hours
and find a seat in an area not covered with adverts, more likely at
the ends of the train.

Downtown Bangkok: a shrine next to the bi-level Skytrain (all wrapped in adverts)

So, while the Skytrain is a swift way
to travel through the commercial parts of the city, it is certainly a
real eyesore, a significant 20th century architectural sin. How can a
city allow to have its main roads distorted that badly by this
elevated concrete structure, which around Siam, the core of the city,
is like a 5-storey building, with its double-deck track viaducts high
above the road. And while it is extremely ugly, the Skytrain stations
mostly require you to climb rather steep stairs from street level,
with only some escalators and lifts being available. In many places,
the “mezzanine”, floating above the road and under the
platform, is accessible directly from adjacent buildings and shopping
malls. And along the central section, a skywalk beneath the tracks
connects Siam with Chitlom stations.

Elevated walkway flanked by Skytrain at junction west of Siam

Once on mezzanine level, you can buy
tickets from machines (coins only) or a ticket window, which also
sells a 1-day pass good for just the two BTS lines, but worth it if
you want to explore the entire system. Single journey tickets can add
up quickly if you use the trains several times. Single tickets also
come on a plastic card which like tokens in China have to be tapped
at the reader when entering the system, but inserted into a slot on
leaving (as it looks nice with a map on it, I got me a 16-baht ticket
as a souvenir…). Security control is less strict than in China, but
you have to walk through a screen, the security guy looked into my
bag only once. Directions are signed well up to the respective
platforms (mostly side platforms with views from ends), but on the
platforms there are generally no information screens telling you how
long it will take for the next train to arrive (I only saw them at Mo
Chit). 

Typical side view of an elevated station – here Chong Nonsi, with the BRT in the far background

Busier stations have been retrofitted with half-height
platform gates with incorporated screens, but these only show adverts
and eventually that the train is arriving. People line up in a
Chinese way as marked on the floor, and this works quite fine, but
the multiple queues obstruct the island platforms at Siam where
cross-platform interchange between the two lines is heavily
practised. Here one notices especially those dispatching guards with
their whistles getting very nervous when you get too close to the
gates as if they could fall down if you lean on them, very annoying
indeed. I was thinking of getting a whistle myself and echo their
stupid commands to drive them crazy. They did not interfere with
photographing, though, so in the end, I tried to be patient with
them.

Once inside the train, the ride is
smooth, the air-conditioning strong, and the train probably pretty
packed. Above the doors, there is a strip map, but not on all trains
showing where you are. Somewhere halfway between doors there is a TV
screen with adverts, but with the sound put on as if there was a
radio playing loud all the time. Very annoying again for us
noise-stricken people. Other annoucements are also frequent, but not
as continuous as in China.

Kheha – southern terminus of the most recent extension

The lack of information screens is
apparent at Samrong station, which acts as the transfer station
between trains operating the main line and shuttle trains operating
the recently opened southern section every 10 minutes. Some say this
is due to rolling stock shortage, but when I rode that line, it was
far from busy, so a 10-minute headway seemed adequate out there. So
while Kheha trains shuttle from the outbound (eastern) track, the Mo
Chit trains reverse on the inbound track, so people just change to
the other side of the platform.

A funny situation can be observed, of
course, at Saphan Taksin station, which is single-track and cannot be
expanded as it is flanked by car ramps leading to the bridge shared
by the metro. Built as a temporary terminus it was kept opened when
the line was extended across the river, luckily, as otherwise the
riverboats would be difficult to reach.

While the BTS trains are quite
spacious, the service feels inadquate on the central sections.
Altough platforms were built for six cars, still only 4-car trains
are used, but hopefully they will be extended one day, or that
additional short workings reinforce the headways on the north-south
line which will even get busier in a few years when the long northern
extension is added too.

View from my hotel room with the Silom Line reversing beyond National Stadium station, the viaduct ends just off the right edge of the photo

The Silom Line has the major flaw that
it ends at National Stadium, too far from the old town. At least a
2-station extension in the same brutal way would easily be possible,
even fitting under an elevated expressway, but this probably has to
wait until the future of the old railway line to Hua Lamphong has
been decided upon.

BRT – tiny bus with single door

Actually a part of the BTS system, the
Bangkok BRT is yet another travel option (with a special 15 baht flat fare). But luckily the intention
to building more such lines was given up as the first line is about
the biggest waste of public money one can imagine. As a “real”
BRT, it has special buses (with doors on the right side) and
high-level platforms), and for most of its length even a dedicated
lane, however, towards the western end, buses get stuck in general
traffic. The buses, especially built for this line, are especially
inadequate, as one would expect from a dedicated busway to offer some
high-capacity service and not a bus every 15 minutes with a very
limited capacity (despite having high platforms, the room inside the
bus is ridiculous, and the the motors seem inadequate for any sort of
service. The automatic gear change makes them crawl up to the bridge
across the river at 20 km/h, and you just hope they don’t come to a
stop as they wouldn’t be able to proceed again. So why would one
build a dedicated infrastructure which in the end carries just some
30 people maximum every 15 minutes. Its integration with the BTS
Silom Line at either end is also far from convenient, the signed path
at the western end, at Talat Phlu, actually leads to some dirty
wasteland under an expressway (better to use the other route via a
more southern footbridge).

Huai Khwang – typical underground station on the MRT Blue Line

MRT

The visual impact issue has certainly
had an influence on the design of the second metro system, referred
to as MRT. Also known as the “Blue Line” (a term I did not
see very often, though), the first line was built completely
underground following wide streets. Built with platforms ready to
take 6-car trains, it still uses only 3-car trains, and honestly, I
haven’t seen them very busy, so there must be something wrong in this
line’s alignment. One would expect that any line would become busy
straight away in a city which is comparable to Greater London both in
size and population and with only the BTS and MRT systems offering a
metro service! Although cheap, this lack of usage must be because of
its poor fare integration. The MRT no longer has a day pass, instead
I got a stored-value card sold at 180 baht with an 80 baht deposit
included. The patronage of the Blue Line will hopefully increase when
it is finally extended through the southern parts of the old town and
under the river out into the western districts. At its northern end
it has already been extended to Tao Poon to link up with the Purple
Line, with its first elevated station. From here, a long elevated
western extension has already been largely completed, so soon it will
become a sort of circle line. 

At Hua Lamphong, some columns were specially clad for the King’s presence in the opening ceremony

The existing underground stations are
hardly worth mentioning regarding their designs, they all look o.k.
but without offering any appeal. Later I noticed that each station
has a different colour ribbon above the platform screen doors and
around columns. Most platforms are quite wide, and given the little
patronage the seem oversized. Luckily Thailand Cultural Center
station was built extra-large as the future interchange with the
orange line, which will run through the vast mezzanine.

Future Orange Line station at Thailand Cultural Center

The newest line is the Purple Line,
which is part of the MRT system and has joint ticketing with the Blue
Line, with no ticket gates between the two lines at Tao Poon. This
line is the most state-of-the-art you can find in Bangkok, with all
sorts of visual information you’d expect of a modern system. It has a
strong purple branding to it, both outside and inside of trains and
on all signage. I do not understand, however, why this line was given
the priority to be built. It must be that it mostly runs outside
Bangkok proper through Nonthaburi, and they had a special lobby to
get it built. Its future central section running parallel to the
river on the side of the old town, would probably be much more
urgently needed, but will certainly be more difficult to build. Now
it runs through changing suburbia offering seats for everyone who
wants to ride it (could be different during peak hours)….

Purple Line train at Talat Bang Yai, a shopping area incl. IKEA

AIRPORT LINE

Actually the first train I encountered
after landing at the newer of the city’s two airports, Suvarnabhumi,
is the airport train operated by SRT, Thailand’s national railways.
There used to be an express service with in-town check-in, but that
was discontinued in 2014, apparently noone used it, no wonder as the
slightly slower service is extremely cheap, just 45 baht, which is
not even 2 €. The special airport express may come back one day as
a direct link between the two airports, the second one, Don Mueang in
the north, being served soon by the new Dark Red Line (viaducts and
stations along the route seem mostly completed). At Suvarnabhumi, the
way down to the station is well signed, and you can get your ticket
(i.e. a token you swipe on entry and insert into a slot on exit)
easily from the counter. The ride is smooth and air-conditioned, but
as the short 3-car train provides a suburban service too, it fills
up, and arriving at Phraya Thai I saw large crowds waiting to get on.
Interchange at that station with BTS is not very convenient, be
prepared to carry your luggage down some steep stairs, the BTS
station is the easier to access.

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