SRT seeks greater logistics integration with Malaysia

Soithip Trisuddhi, director-general of the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning (OTP), said construction of the leg of Malaysia’s electric double-track system that links up to Thailand’s railway at Sadao in Songkhla was 80 per cent complete and would begin operating next year. 

The 1-metre-gauge track can carry both diesel and electric locomotives.

Soithip, who serves as chairman of the State Railway of Thailand, said SRT officials in the South have suggested to her that Thailand should use the same system as Malaysia’s for the route from Sadao to Nakhon Si Thammarat, where an inland container port should be built to handle goods flowing between the two countries in line with the upcoming Asean Economic Community (AEC).

She made the remark while leading OTP officials and the media on a field visit to learn about Malaysia’s double-track system and Penang’s port capacity.

The proposal could be discussed by the policy-makers of the Transport Ministry, as the present focus of the development of the Thai logistics system in the North is delivering goods from China and in the South is delivering goods to the planned Pak Bara deep-sea port in Satun. However, the port development plan has made no progress. 

OTP has hired a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for the double-rail system in the South, which is divided into three phases. The first is Prachuap Khiri Khan-Chumphon and Nakhon Pathom-Hua Hin. 

The Nakhon Pathom-Hua Hin project is scheduled to be finished first by 2015. 

The second phase covers Nakhon Pathom-Hua Hin and Chumphon-Surat Thani. Construction should end by 2019. The last phase connects Surat Thani to Padang Besar, where it will join up with Malaysia’s rail network. This phase should be ready by 2022. Thailand also has a plan to develop a Songkhla-Pak Bara double-track leg.

 

Dual-purpose 

Fuzal Abd Rahman, project manager of Keretapi Tanah Melayu, which is developing Malaysia’s double-track system, said the electric double track from Ipoh to Padang Besar runs 329 kilometres and costs about 12 billion ringgit (about Bt120 billion). It is designed to serve passengers and freight both from within the country and from Thailand to serve the AEC. 

Nazri Bin Ismail, head of container marketing for Penang Port, said the facility could handle about 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containers. Last year throughput was 1.2 million TEUs, of which 15 per cent came from the South of Thailand. 

Capacity would be expanded to 2.5 million TEUs as shipments through the port are forecast to reach 2 million TEUs in 2015.