reader Posted June 21, 2018 Posted June 21, 2018 From Coconuts Bangkok The BTS might be about to get slightly less crowded, as officials are adding 22 brand new German trains to the Sukhumvit Line (Mo Chit to Samrong) in December. A ceremony to hand over the trains between Siemens, the German manufacturing conglomerate and the Bangkok Mass Transit System was held in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday. And if you, like us, were wondering why the handover was celebrated in Turkey, it’s because that’s where our future BTS trains were manufactured. https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/brand-new-22-trains-added-bts-sukhumvit-line/ Quote
Guest Posted June 21, 2018 Posted June 21, 2018 When there is irregular demand for trains, it makes much more sense to manufacture them in one country and export as necessary. Investing in a new factory and local tooling for (on average) a handful of trains every year just pushes up the cost. Thailand can balance it's trade by all the other product that it exports. I believe Thailand runs a balance of trade surplus and Turkey runs a deficit. Quote
vinapu Posted June 21, 2018 Posted June 21, 2018 it's about time as not only trains but also platforms, specially on the Siam station are getting dangerously crowded in rush hours Quote
PeterRS Posted June 23, 2018 Posted June 23, 2018 Not sure the new trains will make much difference as their introduction coincides with the opening of a lot more stations on that line. Why the BTS authorities are like ostriches beats me. The obvious way to reduce congestion is to add one more car to each train on that Line. They steadfastly refuse to do this. Quote
Guest Posted June 23, 2018 Posted June 23, 2018 The obvious way to reduce congestion is to add one more car to each train on that Line. They steadfastly refuse to do this. I would hope some of the 22 train sets would be used to add 1 car per line. That's the easy decision, or it should be for people with logical thought processes. The more difficult issue arises once the train reaches the length of the platform, as considerable investment is needed to go any longer. However, as they don't seem to have any complications with multiple lines using the same track, increasing train frequency should be easy. Also, the government minister responsible for transport should also be using public transport on a regular basis. However even in western democracies, this seems rare. In a kakocracy, I suppose there is even less chance. Have the people making the decisions experienced the service on a regular basis ? Quote
