Better slow than sorry
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How safe are we on Thailand's narrow-gauge railways, with the inherent instability they suffer at any speed?
When I see news of horrific accidents in India and a recent high-speed smash in China, the only comfort I have is in the slow railways of Thailand.
South of Chiang Mai at Sarapee (in fact a fast section of track) you see broken and rotting timber sleeper ties that in many cases are totally detached from the rails! The weight of trains, especially the locomotives, forces the rails apart and the job of these items is to keep them together. The rest of the world steadily switched to concrete sleepers decades ago, but Thailand still relies heavily (pun intended) on weak old wood.
Most derailments in Thailand are caused by heavy rains washing away the gravel that underpins rails and sleepers. And we still have many weeks of the rainy season to go. SRT and travellers beware!
David Hardcastle
Chiang Mai
