Taking Light Rail to SeaTac Airport

Posted on 28 October 2012 by christao408

When it came time for my return flight from Seattle to San Francisco, I thought it might be interesting to try public transit to the airport. I was staying with a friend on Capitol Hill, just northeast of downtown, and a short bus ride to the Central Link light rail that runs to Seattle Tacoma International Airport, about ten miles south of the city.

The first step of the journey involved taking a seven-minute bus ride down the hill to the Westlake station at Fourth and Pine Streets. The bus stop was just a block from my friend’s house and a handy free iPhone app called OneBusAway (developed by the University of Washington) let me know exactly when the next bus was coming, minimizing my waiting time. The ride ended up being free because one of the other waiting passengers had accidentally been given two transfers on his connecting bus, so he gave one to me. Normally, it would be a $2.25 ride.

The Westlake station will be the northern current terminus of the light rail line until 2016 and announcements on the bus made it easy to tell which stop to alight at. Going down two flights of escalators, I found a small ticketing lobby with easy to use self-service ticketing machines. The machines take both cash and cards. “Orca” is the name of the multi-modal fare card in the Seattle area. It stands for “One Regional Card for All” and is, of course, the proper name of the killer whales found in nearby Puget Sound – clever.

From the ticketing lobby I descended another level to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. This 1.3-mile tunnel opened in 1990 and provides a convenient, congestion-free path for buses and light rail trains through the heart of Seattle while also providing passengers protection from the elements while waiting. It seems to be a useful piece of infrastructure.

My adult ticket – $2.75 one-way to the airport. Travel time to the aiport from downtown is 36 minutes, not much longer than what a trip by car would be, without the worries of traffic – and in Seattle, there is usually traffic.

Signage in the station was clear – different bus lines stop in different sections of the platform – and there were staff members present to answer questions. Frequency of the light rail runs from every 7.5 to every 15 minutes, depending on the time of day. I had less than a five-minute wait before my train arrived.

Many passengers boarded at this first station, including several who were clearly going to the airport. Average weekday ridership for the 15.6-mile route is about 25,500, growing at a steady but modest pace.

The two-car trains have a capacity of 74 seated and 126 standing passengers, although it would be hard to imagine that many people standing in this train, especially with the number of people bringing luggage aboard. With the airport as an important destination, there is a surprisingly small amount of storage space for luggage.

Leaving Westlake station, the line passes nine stations at a pretty quick rate, stopping at a station every two or three minutes. The final two stations, though, are much further out with nine minutes between the tenth and eleventh stations. This is a long distance for light rail to run with no stops and as far as I can tell, the route includes no provisions for in-fill stations to be added.

Two minutes afer leaving the second-to-last station, you pull into the SeaTac Airport station. This neatly organized station has a view of the north end of the airport terminal and signage directing you to the airport is clear. Unfortunately, it is an open-air station and I imagine that it gets very unpleasant waiting for a train in the winter. It looks, though, like the usually have an outbound train waiting in the station so passengers do not have to stand out in the elements for long.

A view of the airport light rail station, which is built northeast of the parking garage and is connected via a pedestrian bridge and walkway that is partially protected from the elements. Sound Transit, the light rail operator, says it is a four-minute walk to the airport terminal. That would be a brisk four minutes, especially if you have luggage, and would only get you to the northernmost corner of the terminal. For most people, especially those not flying Alaska Airlines, ten to fifteen minutes would be a better estimate.

View of the hometown airline, Alaska Airlines, from the light rail station.

I’m a fan of public transit and am glad that one more city in America has made its airport more accessible via transit. The Central Link light rail is convenient to use, reasonably comfortable (of course it was unseasonably pleasant weather when I rode it), and offers a good return on money for time. If you live anywhere near downtown (or along the light rail route), it is a compelling alternative to a taxi or private car. Of course, not everyone in Seattle lives near the light rail, which is always the challenge of public transit. Still, my overall impression of the Seattle light rail is a positive one.

Horsing Around in Omaha

Posted on 14 July 2012 by christao408

While in the US, we flew back to Kansas City for a few days visiting family, then drove to Omaha for two nights to visit Andy and Sugi, whose wedding we had just attended in Maui. To make the trip even more fun, we brought my six- and nine-year old nieces along. The main event: ride one of Sugi’s mother’s horses.

On the three-hour drive north to Omaha, we skirted around a rather imposing storm front, managing to stay dry most of the way. The first evening at Andy and Sugi’s house was a bit of a challenge as the girls were supposed to share a bed but the younger one takes a long time to fall asleep. Her older sister couldn’t take it, so decamped to our bedroom, where we set up a comforter, blanket, and pillow on the floor.

The next day, we headed to Sugi’s parent’s house outside of the city. Sugi’s mother has three horses, one of which is very gentle and perfect for children to ride. When we first came into the barn, I think the girls were a bit apprehensive. The older one, Emily, is a little more reticent than her sister, Ava. (Photo courtesy of Andy.)

We each took turns saddling up and riding for a little bit, first in the indoor riding area and then outdoors. (Photo courtesy of Andy.)

Don’t I look like an old pro? (Photo courtesy of Andy.)

We had the girls wear a helmet for safety’s sake. Their reactions to the horses were interesting to watch.

If you aren’t familiar with horses, I can understand how you would be a little in awe of them. They’re awful large, especially when you are a child.

We pose with our ride and Sugi’s mother, Myra. Many thanks to her and her husband Mike for their hospitality. The girls had a great time and helped brush the horse after the ride.

Andy and Ava seemed to be the perfect foil for each other.

We stayed for dinner at Myra and Mike’s house, which was a mixture of foods (including grilled items!) that included several things that spoke to Myra’s heritage growing up in a Japanese-American household on Hawaii. There were a few dishes that the girls were unfamiliar with, but for the most part they gamely gave everything a try.

After dinner, it was some time for Dance Nation!

You can probably guess which song Andy and I were dancing to.

Sugi and Emily share some dessert at brunch the following morning.

After brunch, we went to the old Union Station in downtown Omaha, home of the Durham Museum, a science and technology museum geared towards children. The station’s lobby has wonderful period sculptures, including this businessman reading the train schedule.

Downstairs at the station, there are several refurbished train cars you can walk through, to give you a sense of what life was like on the Union Pacific line back in the day.

Everyone enjoyed hanging out in the lounge car.

In the science part of the museum, we enjoyed an exhibit about puzzles. This one involved four people working together to raise and lower a “hot air balloon” to land on targets on the landscape. Each person controlled a rope that was attached to one of the four sides of the balloon. It took a lot of cooperations, communication, and coordination in order to land on the targets.

Ava and Uncle Tawn pose next to a sculpture of a soldier and his sweetheart waiting for a train to depart.

Ava and Andy got along quite animatedly.

It was a fantastic two days in Omaha and I hope Andy and Sugi weren’t too overwhelmed by our nieces!

My Action Photo

Posted on 3 April 2012 by christao408

The entertaining MyWinningPhoto site here on Xanga hosts weekly themed photo contests. Last week’s theme was “Action” and, unfortunately, I didn’t get my photo submitted by the deadline. Nonetheless, I thought I would share it with you.

Taken on the Thong Lo BTS Skytrain platform with a Panasonic Lumix LX3 – f/5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/1.3 seconds, a 24mm lens, and an ISO of 80. Hope you enjoyed – and don’t forget to go vote!

Riding the Taiwan High Speed Rail

Posted on 30 December 2011 by christao408

When booking my flight back to Bangkok, I was able to find a cheaper fare if I included a 15-hour layover in Taipei. Not only did this save money, it also afforded me enough time to finally take a ride on Taiwan’s High Speed Rail system.

A trio of trains sits in the winter sun at Zuoying station, the southern terminus of the Taiwan High Speed Rail.

I’ve prepared a seven-minute video that tells the whole story, embedded below. Or else you can just browse a selection of pictures and descriptions below. Your choice.

After a nearly 15-hour flight from Los Angeles, of which I managed to sleep more than 10, I arrived in Taipei a few minutes before 6:00 in the morning. My extended layover had caught the attention of EVA staff, who met me at the entrance to the security screening for connecting passengers. The agent wanted to know what I was going to do for that length of time. If I was going to go into the city, she explained, they wanted my boarding pass back. That way they would know when I had returned and checked in again, reducing the uncertainty of a potentially missing connecting passenger.

Not keen on doing that, I explained that I was going to go through security and wait in the lounge. “Okay,” the agent said, “but if you come back please stop by the customer service counter and give us your boarding pass.”

“Sure,” I lied.

For this final leg of the trip, I cashed in some miles and upgraded to business class. The only reason to do this is that the lounge facilities are nicer and there was a risk I’d end up having to stay in the lounge the whole time if my plans to go into the city went awry.

First thing upon arriving in the empty lounge was to take a shower. My tote bag contained three changes of clothes: one for the previous night in LA, one for this morning after arrival in Taipei, and a third for the end of the day before heading home to Bangkok. One key to comfortable long-haul travel is to be able to change your clothes every so often. Fifty hours is too long for one outfit!

After the shower and a shave I enjoyed a spot of breakfast from the lounge. The food is better than you might expect and there is a variety of both western and Asian food. A latte helped wake me from my drug-induced drowsiness and steeled me for my day ahead.

On the way out of the lounge, I explained that I was going to go out for a while and inquired whether I would have any problem re-entering the lounge since they had already taken my invitation card. “No worries, sir,” I was told. “Do you want to leave your bag in a locker?”

That was a helpful offer as I would otherwise have had to pay for a rental locker in the main terminal building, something that isn’t very expensive but made for one more step. My bag securely stored in a complimentary locker in the lounge, I walked back downstairs through security (explaining to the guard that I had gone the wrong way and had meant to go to immigration), passed the EVA agent who had spoken to me about getting my boarding pass (didn’t make eye contact; just kept walking), and continued to Immigration, where I was the last person in a modest queue.

After breezing through Immigration and Customs, I followed the signs to the High Speed Rail shuttle bus. This is U-bus number 705. The ticket counter is inside the doors and the service, which runs every 20 minutes or so, was just 30 NTD (about US$1). Interestingly, I had thought that it was a free service, but it seems to only be free for the return portion.

The Taoyuan HSR station is a ten-minute drive from the airport. The station itself isn’t much to look at from the outside, although the interior is clean and inviting.

Across from the HSR station is the construction site for the Taoyuan Airport MRT line, which will provide direct rail service to the airport starting in 2013. This will ease some of the load off the High Speed Rail as there seem to be many passengers who use the HSR to connect to and from the city, causing a surge of passengers on this approximately 36 km portion of the route. Once the MRT line is open, the High Speed Rail will be used by the longer distance passengers while local passengers can just use the MRT. It will also provide an easier connection for passengers riding the HSR from points south and then connecting to the airport, eliminating the bus ride.

The interior of the Taoyuan station, modern but plain. Lots of clear signage, though.

The Zuoying station, the southern terminus of the HSR, has a much more spacious looking terminal, similar to many recently built airport terminals.

After purchasing my tickets and stopping by Starbucks for another latte (they have Starbucks at each of the HSR stations, save one, as I learned in the seat back pocket magazine), I descended to the platform and waited less than five minutes for my train to arrive. Service seems to run about once every half-hour, although there are some express trains that run in between, skipping many of the stations on the route.

For the southbound journey, I bought a ticket in the economy cabin for NTD 1330, or about US$ 44. This is for a roughly 300km journey that took 1 hour, 40 minutes. An airline ticket (although the HSR has resulted in a significantly reduced the number of flights offered each day) is about twice that much and takes about one hour, not including check-in time, etc.

The seating is five-abreast in seats very comparable to airline economy class seats. With the exception of three of the cars, seats are assigned. Unassigned seats cost NTD 1260, a modest discount.

While I haven’t done a lot of train travel, I can understand the appeal. These seats are similar to an airplane’s but have much more legroom and the ability to get up and move around the cabin any time you want. Compared to the experience on an airplane these days, the train sure looks like a nicer way to travel.

The train also offers two cars of business class, which I tried on the return trip. The fare for the same Taoyuan to Zuoying is NTD 1760, a 32% premium over economy class. For the money you get a wider seat – only two-by-two seating – and several other features. Notice, though, that the carpet in the aisle is badly worn.

Legroom is even greater than in economy, with wide armrests to ensure you aren’t elbowing your seatmate. The footrest confused me a bit. The only position it folded to was nearly on the floor of the train, which doesn’t raise your feet very comfortably.

Several channels of music are available, although you have to bring your own headset. In this day and age, I wonder if anyone is not already traveling with their own digital music player?

The business class seats also come with power plugs in case you want to recharge your digital music player, phone, etc. Interesting that they are not the three-prong grounded plug.

The back of each tray table has a map showing the amenities on the twelve-car train. These include a trio of vending machines as well as several lavatories. There are also phone booths but they do not actually have any telephones in them. Maybe just a quiet spot in case you need to make a call?

Attendants roll up and down the aisles with snack carts, featuring drinks and food items.

My business class ticket entitled me to a free beverage (coffee – not too bad, actually), snack mix, and a chocolate cake/cookie thing.

My overall impression of the system, which reaches its fifth anniversary on January 5, is very positive. The timing was perfect, as I had listened to a KQED podcast about California’s High Speed Rail Commission just a few days before and was thinking about the pros and cons of building a high speed rail system there. There is also an initiative here in Thailand to get Chinese investment to help build four high speed rail routes, so I was very keen to have the chance to actually try high speed rail.

Ultimately, high speed rail is an expensive proposition. But it is also one that can be very convenient to use and bring a lot of benefits to a state or country, not the least of which is a reduction in automobile and aircraft trips, which are less efficient than rail. I’m not saying that high speed rail is necessarily the right choice for California or for Thailand, but it is certainly worth exploring.

Skytrain Sukhumvit Extension Opens

Posted on 1 September 2011 by christao408

Another piece of Bangkok’s transit network puzzle fell into place on August 12, as the 5-station extension to the BTS Skytrain Sukhumvit line opened. After more than a year’s delay caused by a problem ordering track switching mechanisms on time, passengers can now travel all the way to Soi Bearing (Sukhumvit 107). This extension gives access to the Bang Na district, a very congested area of the city that has long been in need of additional mass transit.

Updated map on the ticketing machine obscured the day before opening.

The BTS Skytrain, the first of Bangkok’s three rail transit systems, opened in December 1999 and currently operates a 55-km network composed of two lines and 32 stations. An average of about 472,000 trips are made on the system each day, with many days exceeding the half-million mark.

The five new stations all have the same design with the the tracks running through the center of the station and two platforms on the outside of the tracks. An improvement in these news stations, along with two stations on the Silom line that opened last year, is that the roof covers the entire space. The original stations have an opening in the area over the tracks, resulting in passengers being partially exposed to the elements, especially the when the sun is lower in the sky.

One improvement – all the new stations have elevators. Most of the stations in the system do not have elevators, making travel by train inconvenient for people in wheelchairs (who would have a hard time with most of Bangkok’s sidewalks, too) and parents with strollers. In front of the elevator doors are three safety posts, the purpose of which is not clear. Perhaps they are meant to keep someone from rolling out of the elevator and onto the tracks. I guess if someone was backing out they may not see where the edge of the tracks is, although they would have to travel a couple of meters before reaching it.

One challenge to mobility is that the stretch of Sukhumvit Road on which these new stations are built, has narrow sidewalks. The placement of station stairs and escalators essentially blacks the sidewalks, leaving no room for wheelchairs or strollers or even for two people to pass each other. This seems like a problem that could have been overcome, although I have noticed that the traffic lanes actually narrow as they pass beneath the stations, so perhaps squeezing out more space was impossible.

Fortunately, there are signs of some amount of foresight in the construction of the track viaduct and support structure. At the point between Udom Suk and Bang Na stations, the track viaduct is wide enough for two pairs of tracks. In the picture above, just above the pedestrian bridge, you can see the end caps for two additional tracks.

Turning 180 degrees and looking southeast along the tracks, the left side of the next support beam has a pad on which one of the track viaducts could rest. The train track passes between two levels of the expressway at Bang Na. One of the planned future extensions, although there is no specific timeframe in which it will be built, is to have a spur line branch off from the main Sukhumvit line and head northeast along the expressway. This extension would include a stop at the BITEC convention center. Currently, the closest station (Bang Na) is about a kilometer away, although an indoor walkway is being constructed to connect the station and the convention center and looks set to open in a few months.

The problem with the new five-station extension is that it is projected to add some 100,000 additional trips to the system each day, but during rush hour the system is already at peak capacity. This view of Asoke station, taken at 6:30 pm on a weekday, is too typical.

The layout of station entrances, something that would be difficult to change significantly, is narrow and results in ticket machine lines running into the fare gate lines running into still other lines. The entrance areas at the new stations seem to be wider, which will hopefully help. Another thing that would help at existing stations is to remove small retail kiosks adjacent to the fare gates. These consume real estate that could ease the congestion of foot traffic.

The capacity problem is less about station entrance design, though. It is primarily an issue of not enough train cars. There are 35, three-car Siemens trains on the system. Last year, following the opening of two new stations on the Silom line, 12, four-car Bombardier trains were added, running exclusively on the Silom line. This additional capacity was immediately swallowed up. In October 2010, the operator of the Skytrain ordered an additional car for each of the three-car trains, although it seems these will not arrive until at least next year. Also next year, an additional four-station extension will open on the Silom line. Dr. Pichet Kunadhamraks of the Ministry of Transport’s Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, indicated by email that he thinks these additional train cars will satisfy demand.

Earlier this year, the Transport Minister asked for residents’ patience until 2015, by which point some 60-plus kilometers of additional rail lines will have opened, adding to the approximately 103 kilometers currently operating. It will be interesting to see whether these new lines and extensions open on time and, if they do, what impact they have on the city’s traffic. Bangkok is a city that would be well-served if it had a comprehensive network of rail transit. It would also be well-served by a bus network that feeds into that network, rather than largely duplicating it. That, however, is a topic for another day.

Singapore Light Rail and New Urbanism

Posted on 2 May 2011 by christao408

During a March visit to Singapore, I decided to ride the subway out to the nether reaches of the island to visit the light rail lines. Singapore has three light rail lines that form four loops connecting to stations in the rail-based public transit network. They were built with the express purpose of serving master-planned housing estates, giving residents a door-to-door rail service that allowed them to get around without increasing road-based traffic.

The light rail itself is clean and efficient, with the automated cars running regularly on elevated tracks that weave between housing towers. Below is a video that overviews my experience on the system, including a startling discovery I made about how technology is used to solve a perhaps unforseen privacy problem.

Matters of urban planning and design have always interested me and for a short while in university I was an urban planning major. Examples of transit-oriented land use, like the developments that surround the light rail lines in Singapore, make me think about ways that similar lessons could be applied in the United States.

A country with a plentitude of land, since World War II development in the US has been oriented towards the automobile, resulting in more and more sprawl and fewer and fewer neighborhoods where one can walk from home to anywhere useful. With rising fuel prices and ever-increasing congestion on the roads, it amazes me that there has been continued resistance not only to public transit, but transit-oriented development.

There are a few examples in the United States of what is sometimes called “New Urbanism”, a design philosophy that promotes more walkable and transit-friendly neighborhoods that include mixed use buildings – shops, businesses, and residences in the same general area. Not unlike traditional older neighborhoods in an urban environment, there are small shops on the main streets, some apartments overhead or in the surrounding blocks, and then single-family dwellings set further back. Orenco Station, a neighborhood in the Portland, OR area is a good example of this type of planning.

(Comparing the “suburban sprawl” photo earlier in this entry with the master plan for Orenco Station, you’ll notice that suburbia has a lot of dead-end streets, which means there’s always a long way to go to get out of the neighborhood.)

Some defining elements of this new style of development include:

The neighborhood has a discernible center. This is often a square or a green and sometimes a busy or memorable street corner. A transit stop would be located at this center.
Most of the dwellings are within a five-minute walk of the center, an average of roughly ¼ mile or 1,320 feet (0.4 km).
There are a variety of dwelling types — usually houses, rowhouses, and apartments — so that younger and older people, singles and families, the poor and the wealthy may find places to live.
At the edge of the neighborhood, there are shops and offices of sufficiently varied types to supply the weekly needs of a household.
An elementary school is close enough so that most children can walk from their home. There are small playgrounds accessible to every dwelling — not more than a tenth of a mile away.
Streets within the neighborhood form a connected network, which disperses traffic by providing a variety of pedestrian and vehicular routes to any destination. The streets are relatively narrow and shaded by rows of trees. This slows traffic, creating an environment suitable for pedestrians and bicycles.
Parking lots and garage doors rarely front the street. Parking is relegated to the rear of buildings, usually accessed by alleys.

As I look at these design elements, I see of list of things that have a whole lot of “pros” and very few, if any, “cons”. While the US will never go the route of Singaporean style land use – there’s no comparable acquiesence to the wisdom of the government, for starters – it does seem that a more comprehensive approach to land use would benefit the United States and our quality of life in the decades to come.

Further reading: Interesting blog entry titled “Five Causes of Suckiness in American Architecture“.

A Map to the Future

Posted on 14 March 2011 by christao408

As the city grows, as business and tourism rebound after the political upheaval of the past few years, Bangkok’s rail transit gets increasingly crowded. Following the opening of a two-station extension, the first across the Chao Phraya River, the Skytrain recently put into service new four-car trains on the Silom line. At the same time, they have ordered additional cars that should arrive in the next year or so to enlarge the existing three-car trains, all of which will be placed on the Sukhumvit line.

Riding on one of the new trains recently, I was surprised to look at the system map posted over the door and discover nine stations that I had never seen before. In a fit of extreme advance planning, the maps show not only the five stations that are scheduled to open at the On Nut end of the Sukhumvit line in August 2011, but also the four stations that will be added beyond Wongwian Yai station, across the river, sometime in the later part of 2012.

Needless to say, the advance planning didn’t include the “Future Stations” stickers, so for several weeks passengers were scratching their heads, wondering whether the new stations had surreptitiously opened. The stickers have been added, though, so now everyone can admire all of the new stations they have to look forward to.

Along those lines, Tawn and I were on the northwestern outskirts of the city this past weekend visiting friends’ new baby, and we came across two sections of new rail construction, one definitely the “Purple Line” and another that was a bit confusing. It is either part of the Purple Line or else may be part of the Red Line, although I didn’t realize they had started building it.

In any case, I’m excited to see that some significant signs of progress are being made in extending the mass transit infrastructure here in Bangkok. It may take a few more years of pain, but the results should be well worth it. All we need to do now is to integrate the buses routes into the rail system and we’ll really have something going!

Airport Link Now Fully Up and Running

Posted on 6 September 2010 by christao408

In June I wrote about my first ride on the Bangkok Airport Rail Link (ARL), which spent the past few months running a limited test service. The line has both a local and express service, the express promising to move you from the airport to the center of the city in fifteen minutes. The trial run for the past few months, though, only featured the local service. Two weeks ago the express portion was brought on line and the system was officially opened, so I went for another ride to check it out.

Now that all the stations were in operation, I decided to ride the express from the Makkasan terminal station (located near Asoke between Rama IX Expressway and Petchaburi Roads) nonstop to the airport, and then ride the local service back to Phaya Thai station, where the ARL connects with the BTS Skytrain.

Back in June one problem I noticed was that the ARL station (on the right in the picture) didn’t physically connect with the BTS station (on the far left). In fact, there was a gap of a good 5 meters, meaning that you had to walk down the stairs from one station, along the road, across the train tracks, and then ascend an escalator into the other station. Not convenient at all – especially for someone with suitcases!

I’m glad to report that on opening day, they had a connector bridge just barely finished (work was still underway but a narrow walkway was opened through it) that takes you from the paid area of the BTS station (in the background) to the public area of the ARL station (in the foreground). The operator of the BTS has added fare gates and a ticket window so you can enter and exit the station conveniently, walking directly to the ARL station.

Amazing, but true – there was some amount of advance planning and coordination between the agencies!

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the Makkasan Station, a beautiful, modern facility that is meant to offer the convenience of checking in for your flight at the station, checking your bags, and then being able to whisk off to the airport without the worry of lugging your suitcases with you.

The station is set back some 200 meters (650 feet) from Asoke Road, a heavily congested north-south artery, and some 500 meters from the Petchaburi MRTA subway station exit. Despite more than three years of construction, there is no direct pedestrian access between the MRTA and ARL and no vehicular ramps connecting the station to the southbound (inbound to the city) side of Asoke.

Illustration as to why this is a problem:

As I was walking from the subway station to the ARL station, a very pedestrian unfriendly route, I came across a family of travelers, pulling their suitcases from the ARL station. I asked where they were heading, ready to give directions, and they were looking for a taxi. Of course, the driveways weren’t open and no taxi queue was up and running, so they had to walk the 200 meters to the street and try to flag a taxi down. To top it off, the taxi would be going the opposite direction from where they were headed.

Open building but no taxis or any other traffic allowed up to the facility.

A week after the ARL opened, the State Railways of Thailand, which owns and operates the system, announced they would build an elevated pedestrian walkway to the subway station and would build ramps so cars could access the station from all directions. Give them two years and then things might work better.

The State Railways owns a huge tract of land around the Makkasan station, what used to be their main switch yards and maintenance facility. Their grand vision is to eventually develop all of this – enough room for 20 or more skyscrapers – into a large mixed-use facility of offices, hotels, convention center, shopping, and maybe some residential. At that point in time, it would be conveniently located. Until then, it is not really near much of the city.

In fact, that is probably the reason they chose to make Makkasan station the in-city terminal. They stand to make a lot of money (and maybe, for the first time in 50+ years, turn a profit?) from land development. The obvious place for the in-city terminal would have been Phaya Thai station, adjacent to the BTS Skytrain. Better synergy with the transit systems.

The express train to the airport is quite nice. The station is air conditioned and well signed, if lacking in taxis. The trains run every fifteen minutes and the cars are comfortable with forward and rear facing seats, luggage racks, and overhead storage for small items. The train is also very fast – top speeds supposedly of 150 kmh, but I think it is more like 120 most of the way.

A view of the roads leading from the highway to the airport as we zoom past, arriving exactly fifteen minutes after leaving Makkasan.

My assessment: The system is a very welcome addition to the transit network here in Bangkok. The local line, which connects from the airport directly to the Skytrain with six intermediate stops, is very useful and will probably do a lot of business, what with the rapidly-expanding suburbs to the east of the city. The airport express itself isn’t useful as you pay more and wind up at a station that isn’t convenient to anything. My advice – if you are arriving in the city and want to use the train, use the local line. Or, if there are more than two of you, take a taxi. In another two or three years, once the connections to the Makkasan station have been built and it is more convenient, I might revise my opinion.

First Ride on the Bangkok Airport Link

Posted on 14 June 2010 by christao408

Three years late, the rail line to the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport has finally started running, although on a limited, trial basis. Last week I headed out for a look at this latest addition to Krungthep’s transit infrastructure.

The new airport, Suvarnabhumi, opened more than three years ago about 30 km east of the heart of the city. The planned rail service, the so called “pink line,” suffered through interminable delays caused for any number of reasons, not the least of which might have to do with the State Railways of Thailand’s notorious inefficiency. The SRT, which owns the right-of-way, built, and will eventually operate the pink line, has never turned a profit in its more than half-century of operations.

Nonetheless, I’m excited that another piece in the transit puzzle is nearly put into place as the line started limited trial service almost two weeks ago.

The pink line is actually two lines: the darker line is the city line, which will make multiple stops between the airport and Phaya Thai, which is currently the westernmost station. As you can see in the above map, there were several planned but unbuilt stations, shown with station names in outlined font. The second, light pink line is the airport link, which will run nonstop between the airport and the Makkasan station (at Asoke and Petchaburi Roads), where the in-city terminal will be located.

If all goes according to plan, passengers will be able to check in for their flights at Makkasan station, receive boarding passes and drop off their bags, then ride on the train to the airport. Their bags will be carried in a secure storage area and, already ticketed, will go from the train directly into the airport’s baggage system. It sounds like there will be some delay before that part is operational.

Additionally, the plan is that passengers on the pink line will be able to connect with the BTS Skytrain at Phaya Thai and with the MRT subway at Makkasan-Petchaburi. Sadly, it appears that neither connection is currently built.

I met up with Bill and Ken, two friends with an interest in things both transit and aviation related, at the Phaya Thai BTS station to give the pink line a try. During this trial run, only the two end stations – Phaya Thai and Airport – are operational on the pink line. The train service is running weekdays from 7-10 am and 4-10 pm nonstop between these stations, although some intermediate stops will be introduced next week. This trial run is free and will last until August, when the full system is supposed to be in service.

Above, you can see the Phaya Thai station of the pink line, the big concrete behemoth on the right, and a ramp that is supposed to connect to the Phaya Thai BTS station on the left. You’ll notice, though, that the ramp stops about 5 meters short of the BTS station. I’m curious about this because passengers will have to walk down to the street level, along 100-200 meters of broken, dirty sidewalk, cross an active railway line, and then ascend into the second station, regardless of which way they are connecting.

Above: Flagman at the active railroad tracks that passengers connecting between the pink line and BTS have to cross, directs cars off the track as a train approaches.

My theory for this is that the two systems didn’t communicate very well, even though the BTS has been running for more than ten years so certainly wasn’t an unknown entity. The ramp would connect a paid area in the BTS station with a public area in the pink line station. So someone is going to have to pay to build and maintain turnstiles and a BTS ticket booth somewhere at the connection point. This is insane because the three rail systems in town are supposed to be moving to a common ticket platform – one ticket, all systems – so the ramp should lead from the paid area to another paid area, not pass through a public area of the pink line station.

Anyhow, we walked across the railroad tracks with no problems and took the elevators up several levels in the new pink line station, being directed by friendly guards the whole way.

The trains (these are the city line trains being used for the test run, not the airport link trains) are from Siemens and they look nice enough. The stations along the line are not very impressive, a collage of grey concrete and grey metal. Only the Makkasan and Airport stations are air conditioned.

The line was pretty well used when I took it about 4pm. By the time the train left, the seats were full with many of the passengers looking like airport employees or people who live out in the eastern suburbs. There were also many local tourists traveling just to see the new train and, surprisingly, a few people actually using the train to get to the airport with their bags.

Once the line is fully operational, the city line will charge between about 10-40 baht (up to US$1.25) and the airport link will charge 150 baht (US$4.75). I would assume that the seating arrangement on the airport link train will feature pairs of seats facing forwards and backwards along with storage space for carry-on baggage.

Notice the wide gap between the train and the platform. It looks like there is a ledge under the door that can be extended, but they were not doing that.

The monitors in the station show a video of the route, alternating between Thai and English. There is also a countdown clock until the next departure – shown in seconds! I’ve never seen a train station that shows countdown time in seconds. And, believe me, SRT isn’t the sort of prompt organization that runs things to the second.

Looking east from Phaya Thai station towards the Ratchaprarop station, the two closest stations on the line.

The ride itself was very smooth, with the exception of one station midway through the line where there is a passing lane. We had to slow down significantly to change tracks, breaking our otherwise good speed of approximately 120 kmh or 75 mph. We were going faster than all but the fastest taxis on the expressway that parallels the tracks most of the way to the airport.

Along the way, there was a nice view of the many new housing development springing up near the airport and the new stations on the pink line. This line will probably become very useful, less for airport passengers and employees, but more for locals who live to the east of the city and need a fast way to commute into town to their offices.

It took just about 20 minutes to go from Phaya Thai station to the airport. I understand that the airport link service from Makkasan to the airport will be about 16. The train pulls into the sub-basement of the car park structure, connecting directly into the terminal building. A quick ride up the elevator or moving sidewalks and you are at the arrivals and departures levels. Very convenient on this end of the line. In the future, you will be able to walk through this station to the airport hotel, which you currently have to take a shuttle van to. The station will also have various retail shops, although those are all located on the hotel side of the station, which doesn’t make much sense.

There are some potential cons to the system right now and I’ll have to wait and see how it works once the whole system is up and running, then I’ll talk more about the cons if they haven’t been addressed. For the moment, I’ll simply say that I’m glad additional transit options are opening and I hope that we’ll see several more in the next few years.

Speaking of which, one has to wonder where the pink line, which ends just to the west of the Phaya Thai station, will go in the future. The master plan shows this line continuing, turning north and heading towards the old Don Meuang airport (and beyond) and also turning south and heading to the current Hualamphong train station and then underground, across the river, and southwest to Samut Sakhon province. Ambitious!

Riding the Rails to Mae Klong

Posted on 10 May 2010 by christao408

If you’ve watched the Thailand episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, then you are familiar with the Mae Klong Railway. This tiny single track line runs from the west side of Bangkok, completely detached from the rest of the State Railway network, to Mae Klong in Samut Songkhram province. Along the way the line ends on one side of the river in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province and you have to take a ferry across the river to resume your journey.

A highlight of the journey is the last few hundred meters of the line, which run right through the center of the Mae Klong wet market. Vendors scurry to pull back their trays, tables, and canopies so the train can pass through. No sooner has the train passed then the vendors slide everything back out, just like a giant zipper closing along the tracks.

The reason I took this journey, besides the fact that I’ve heard about it for several years and been curious to take it, was to evaluate its suitability for some guests who will be arriving in the coming months.

The terminus of the railway is just a short drive from the Amphawa nighttime floating market, about which I’ve written several times (here and here). The idea is that I could combine this train ride with a visit to the floating market, and then catch a bus or van back to Bangkok.

Right: Fellow traveler on the Mae Klong line.

For this adventure, I invited Bill, an American who moved here recently. He’s spent extended periods here before and I know he has a taste of adventure. In fact, he was here during the September 2006 coup and went out to shoot some great nighttime photos of the tanks. He seemed well suited for what could potentially end up as a “and how do we get home?” sort of adventure.

If you’d like to just watch the movie version of this entry, the ten-minute video is here:

Otherwise, keep reading!

The first challenge is that the train to Mae Klong departs at a tiny neighborhood station in Thonburi, on the west bank of Bangkok’s Chao Praya River instead of at the main Hualamphong Station. Thankfully, six months ago the BTS Skytrain opened an extension across the river and the current terminus station is at Wongwian Yai, just a fifteen-minute walk (or five-minute taxi ride) from the Wongwian Yai Railway Station.

You would be forgiven if you miss the station, which is located down the soi (alley) on the left with the small white sign. In the distance is a large traffic circle, in the center of which is a statue of King Taksin (not the same spelling or pronunciation as the former Prime Minister Thaksin), the only king who ruled Siam from the capital here in Thonburi. The capital was in Thonburi only 15 years before Taksin’s successor, King Rama I, moved the capital to the east bank where present-day Krungthep (Bangkok) is.

The train sitting in Wongwian Yai Station with beautiful tropical foliage at the end of the line.

Like all the terminal stations on the Mae Klong line, Wongwian Yai station is located in the midst of the market area. Rows of vendors sell all sorts of fresh goods and other vendors sell food and drink to the locals and the commuters. Despite this being a small, single-track line, it carries a lot of traffic including commuters into the city as well as both shoppers and sellers on their way to and from the market.

An hour and about eight stops later, we arrived in Mahachai, the local name for the administrative seat of Samut Sakhon province. Here, too, we found a market surrounding the station. But in this case it was starting to spill over, with vendors who had to move each hour as the trains arrive and depart.

Samut Sakhon is mostly a fishing town situated on the Tha Chin Klong River, which opens into the Gulf of Thailand. There is a large fishing fleet which brings in large catches of many different types of seafood, most prominently the local delicacy plaatoo – mackerel.

A short walk from the Mahachai train station is the main ferry pier and next to that is a prominent six- or seven-story seafood restaurant. My friend Stuart, who has done this trip twice before, suggested a stop here for lunch and since we had about three hours between trains (the trains on the second line run just four times a day versus hourly on the first line), Bill and I decided to try it.

The top several stories are air conditioned but there was a wonderful breeze so we opted to sit in one of the open-air seating areas. What beautiful weather for enjoying a fresh seafood meal. Here’s what we had – way too much food for just two people!

Typical condiments: lime, green onions, cucumber (to cool the spice), fish sauce with chili (small dish) and seafood dipping sauce which is made from tons of chilies, fish sauce, lime juice, and palm sugar, all blended together.

Deep fried omelet with crab meat. Sweet chili dipping sauce.

Stir-fried mixed vegetables.

Gaeng Som – orange soup, moderately spicy and made with tamarind paste.

Closeup of the soup, with shrimp and pieces of omelet made with a strong-flavored green that grows along the river banks. Has the same effect as asparagus.

Fried rice with salted fish and crab.

The big finale were two large grilled river prawns with some of that super-hot dipping sauce from the first picture. So fresh!

How fresh, you ask? Right out of the tank and onto the fire. Now that’s fresh!

Want to take a guess at the price of the meal? All that food (plus beer for me) was 1100 baht – about US$34. And I think about half that price went just for the prawns. Wow, what a great meal.

After the meal we headed out to find the ferry to the Ban Laem train station on the far side of the river. It turns out that the main ferry departing from the pier adjacent to the restaurant will drop you on the correct side of the river, but several blocks from the train station. The ticket attendant indicated that there was another ferry we could take, motioning behind the restaurant.

Bill and I headed around the building, past a warehouse where fish were being processed, and found this really rickety looking pier with a small ferry docked at it. We boarded and asked the few people sitting on the ferry if the ferry was going to Ban Laem Railway Station. They nodded. I tried to pay my fare and they laughed and said that they were passengers, too. A few minutes later it became clear who the captain was as he stuck his head into the engine compartment at the rear of the boat to fire up the engine. His dog, seemingly high on caffeine, was running around the boat like crazy, wrestling with the mooring line.

It took about ten minutes to slowly chug our way up the river. The west side of the river at this point is actually a bulbous isthmus, so while it took a lot of time, we weren’t really covering much ground. Looking at the map later, I think we would have been fine to take the main ferry and then just walk a few blocks to the train station, but no matter. The view was pleasant. The tide was out and any number of fishing vessels sat on the mud, their vibrant colors fading in the sun.

As we pulled up to the pier in Ban Laem, it wasn’t clear how we were going to disembark as the pier was fully out of the water. The captain nudged the bow of his boat up to the pier and we clambered off over the bow, landing on more rickety wooden decking. In this picture you can actually see one of the trains at the station, right below the temple’s roof. Talk about integrated transit – the train line ends right next to the boat pier.

The hour journey from Ban Laem up to Mae Klong was a lot less comfortable than the first segment from Bangkok. The tracks seemed less even and we were rocking and rolling. The train filled as we approached Mae Klong, so there wasn’t any room to spread out. We were getting tired and weary from the heat and the endless salt evaporation ponds made for monotonous viewing.

As we pulled into Mae Klong, we passed through what seemed to be a forest of canvas as the market vendors’ awnings were pulled back, making walls that nearly blinded us as we rolled through. From were we were sitting, we couldn’t see the vendors themselves.

Upon our arrival we had one hour before the train – the last train of they day – headed back. We did a quick walk around downtown Mae Klong, a town I’m actually pretty familiar with as it is the administrative seat of Samut Songkhram, the province in which I spent more than a year volunteering as an English teacher at a small elementary school.

We were back about twenty minutes before departure and had to fight to get some seats. Everyone wanted to be on the last train of the day, it seemed. On the way into Mae Klong, I noticed that some other tourists (Thai tourists, though) were at the back of the train taking pictures out the open rear door. A few minutes before we headed out, I decided to go to the back of the train (which had been the front of the train when we arrived) and see if I could open the door to take pictures of the market as we passed through it.

I couldn’t open the door – it seemed fixed shut – but some of the local ladies sitting at that end of the train engaged me in conversation and told me to go ahead and sit in the engineer’s compartment. Not sure if I should or not, I decided that “they told me I could” was an adequate excuse and went ahead and sat down. Carefully holding the camera out the window while looking in the rearview mirror for any obstacles that would slice off my hand, I filmed our trip out of the station and through the market.

It was amazing, watching the vendors push their trays and wares and awnings back in place not two seconds after the train had passed. As I wrote earlier, it was just like a zipper closing up over the railway tracks. Next time I take that train I’m going to figure out how to open the door so I can get a good view of it.

The ride home was anticlimactic. We had seen the landscape before and including the three-hour layover the entire journey had taken more than eight hours. My conclusion is that doing just the first half of the trip is probably plenty – take the train out to Mahachai for lunch and then take it back. Samut Songkhram province and the Amphawa floating market is best reached by car or van.

By the time we made it back to the Wongwian Yai Skytrain station, the sun had set and a beautiful early evening sky glowed above the city. Another fun and exciting adventure in Thailand.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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