Thai Train Guide

Hopefully my Indian Train Guide will be useful to other travelers, I noticed that it is already #2 on google, so it is pretty easy to find. With that in mind, I figured I might share some wisdom about long distance transport in Thailand, where the bus and train are both important. This is a little better documented in Lonely Planet, but I still feel like more information is better, I certainly would have liked to have access to more before I left. Anyway, here is my Thai Train Guide, the Bus Guide will be later.

THAI TRAINS

CLASSES

We took two classes. We only took two trains, both overnight, so I cannot vouch for how the regular chair classes would be during the day, or at night. The two classes we took were both quite nice. One thing is that Thailand works on a narrow gauge rail system, so all cars a quite a bit narrower then in India, or on most train systems, the configurations reflect that.

1st Class Sleeper

In this class you get your own private room with 2 bunk beds. Although the privacy is nice, this is not the orient express or anything like that. The rail cars were clean enough, but not immaculate, and the room is pretty small. Everyone on our car to Chiang Mai was a tourist, including some drunken brits who brought a bucket full of beer (they were actually not particularly loud or anything). One nice thing about Thai Railways is that they make up your bed for you. Around bed time in the evening the conductor will start working the hallway asking if you want your beds made for the night. When you grab him he will convert your room from daytime configuration to bunk beds and make your bed with clean sheets, very nice. In the morning they convert your room back to daytime configuration.

Another consideration is that, as opposed to some train systems, 1st class is only 50% or so more then 2nd class, rather then 100% or so as you sometimes see on other rail systems. I still think 2nd class is a much better deal, but if you have to take 1st class it is not a killer.

2nd Class Sleeper

This is very nice as well, better then anything, except maybe 1st class, in India. It is a setup where on each side of the aisle of the car there are two single seats that face each other with a table in the middle, in daytime configuration. At night it turns into bunks, two high where the two seats are. The nice thing is that each bed is almost like a little pod, with a nice large mattress and a private curtain. This would be a much nicer setup for a solo traveler then in India. As with 1st Class, they come and make your bed at night and take your bed apart in the morning. On our train from Chiang Mai the vast majority of people in this class were also tourists.

FINDING YOUR TRAIN

This is a whole lot easier then India, there are only 4 main lines and they all radiate from Bangkok. The railway website has all the information you need. The only thing that I would keep in mind is that a few of the trains are Rapid (RAP) or Ordinary (ORD), I am pretty sure that these do not have sleeper cars. The ones most tourists take are the overnight trains that go to Chiang Mai and to the beach areas down south. These are the Express (EXP) and Special Express (SP EXP) trains, that have numbers less then 100.

BUYING A TICKET

This is the thing that is a pain in Thailand. The trains seem to book up very early, so you need to try to get a ticket as far ahead of time as you can. I was able to buy a ticket one day ahead of time to Chiang Mai, but there was no 2nd class left and I got the last 1st class on any of the evening trains that night. Going back to Bangkok, I was several days ahead of time, but there were still only a couple of 2nd class berths on one train.

As far as where to buy the ticket, this seems pretty easy. On the way to Chiang Mai I just went to the station in Ayutthaya (a little north of Bangkok, where we were leaving from). There was a desk in the station for advance tickets with a very nice guy who sold me the tickets. In Chiang Mai I used a travel agent. This worked fine as well, I got legit tickets for only a small fee. The nice thing about this is that quite a few of the Thai train stations are not in the middle of town, so it can be a lot easier not to have to take a tuk-tuk all the way out to the train station just to get the ticket.

AT THE STATION

Our experience at the train station was very easy. The stations are not that big and there was plenty of signage and information as to where the trains are and when they are expected to arrive or leave. You do not need to show any tickets to get on the platform, they are checked on the train. They did not have much in the way of concessions at the train stations I was at. At least there were generally some food stalls and convenience store nearby. You do not really need any food for the train, since they have plenty of stuff to sell. Keep in mind however that the food on the train is quite expensive (by Thai standards), so if you are a budget traveler it is quite a bit cheaper to bring something with you from the stalls or the convenience store.

ON THE TRAIN

As I explained before, the attendants are quite attentive and make your bed in the evening and take it apart in the morning. Other then that things are pretty obvious. They do also have a person who works for the catering service who roams the train in the evening, selling dinner (if the train leaves before dinner time), beer and taking orders for breakfast the next morning. The food is OK, nothing special, but acceptable. The problem is that it is very expensive. My recollection is that a meal is around 200 Baht and a beer was more then 100 Baht, which is quite exorbitant in Thailand. After I found this out I brought a collection of convenience store and stall food and drinks on the train, saving quite a bit of money in the process.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

One thing I wanted to mention, as it worked out quite well for us, is that there is a station next to the old Don Muang airport North of Bangkok. This is nice because we were able to hook up a trip where we traveled all the way from Chaing Mai to Surat Thani leaving in the evening and arriving before lunch the next day, without having to buy two plane tickets, or pay the expensive fares for the direct flight. It was quite easy to get the evening train from Chiang Mai, get off at Don Muang, walk the 20 minutes over to the one terminal of the airport that is still open, and catch a morning flight to southern Thailand. A good way to go, and saves a night in a hotel. The walk to the terminal is kind of freaky however, since the part of the airport near the station is closed down, just walk about 20 minutes south along the old airport terminal buildings and you will reach the open domestic terminal.