Northeast rail project back on track

Pranot Suriya, deputy director-general of the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTP), said yesterday that if the proposal is approved, the Transport Ministry would begin the project design and environmental impact assessment this year.
The study on the impact on property and the estimate of the land reclamation price would run from next year to May 2014.
Construction is expected to commence in 2014. If all goes as planned, the system would undergo an operating trial and the service would be kicked off in early 2017.
This project of building a new railway in the central and upper parts of the Northeast has been studied for 20 years. The Cabinet in 1997 approved in principle the construction of the 368-kilometre Roi Et-Mukdahan-Nakhon Phanom route but the project was suspended following the economic crisis at that time.
In 2005, the Cabinet ordered the Transport Ministry to revise the project, which was divided into four possible routes, including the route to link the five provinces.

Then the ministry hired Team Consulting Engineering and Management to study the revision, which concluded that the route is the most feasible.
It is expected to serve 5.4 million passengers and carry 255,000 tonnes of cargo per year when it is opened in 2017, increasing to 7.4 million passengers and 346,000 tonnes of cargo per year in 2036.
In 20 years the route will help the country save Bt56.5 billion or Bt2.8 billion per year in logistic costs and environmental damage from car pollution.
The project is estimated to cost Bt41.36 billion for land expropriation, tracks, stations, signalling and telecommunications systems and other work.