I have learned from experience that people ought to get advanced train tickets to ensure that they could actually travel on the intended dates. Most people would buy train tickets at least one week in advance of the traveling date. I found out that sometimes I couldn’t get advanced train tickets four weeks before my supposedly traveling dates. On some routes, people could get train tickets ninety days in advance. Those were the express sleeper trains which were very modern and fast.
So, I tried to get my advanced tickets four weeks before my intended journeys. In this way, I could make sure I got my favourite seat numbers on the trains. I would book my train tickets via the call center. Then I had to collect my tickets at the nearest railway station within three hours. It used to be 24 hours gap before one could pick up the reserved tickets. This was quite a rush as the traffic could be quite bad and I often had to do several things during these three hours. I preferred to pick up my train tickets at the old station where I could reminisce about my childhood days at my grandmother’s house near the old station.
Things had changed a lot over the past twenty years. The area around my Chinese grandmother’s house had become part of the new motor ways. The old buildings and shophouses opposite the railway were left as they were. I was glad these old buildings weren’t turned into some high rise hotels. I was very fond of this old railway station as it was built by King Rama V in 1910. So, the Hua Lamphong station (or Bangkok Station) was over 114 years old.
The architecture was a mix between Italian style with Renaissance and looked a bit like the station in Frankfurt in Germany. The Italy influence was due to the presence of the Italian architect who was responsible for designing several palaces and bridges in the old Siam. Lots of gigs building materials were imported from Germany and Italy. For example, the iron work and stain glass were from Germany while the white marble tiles were from Italy. The old classic design of Hua Lamphong station was very soothing to my eyes and calming for my spirit.
Nowadays this old station was used by very short distant trains around Bangkok. Most trains had been moved to the new railway station in BangSue district which had very poor logistics for mass transit, buses and underground train connections. Most passengers still would like to use this old station instead of the new location far away from bus connections. The old station had a friendly and warm ambience where passengers felt at ease. It’s just impossible to get lost at this station whereas passengers often got lost at the new and enormous railway station.
I could make several pages of complaints about the new railway station from unoriginal design (I happened to see a similar building in a video from Japan) to unfriendly attitudes of newly recruited staff at the new station. But that wouldn’t benefit anyone so I’d rather look around the old station and let my mind wandering off into the good old days. I always got excited whenever I took a taxi to the old station for my train journey to the border town: Nongkhai. I wondered which train I would be on and whether I would meet the same old staff on the train. I used to traveling by night train so I knew all the staff who made the bed and most of the restaurant staff.
Nowadays I have switched to traveling by day train which was much cheaper and gave me a chance to see various sceneries of the countryside. I have tried to befriend the staff on these trains but they seemed to belong to a different set of culture. They were still young and didn’t have the gentle manners as those older staff of the night trains. Most of the staff on the night train had a few years left before their retirement. They seemed to be tgd last group of service minded staff of the old tradition of railway culture.
I knew some old railway staff who told me that the old generations were very proud to work on the railway. All their lives, they spent more time on the trains than at their homes. The old leadership treated the railway like running a big family so there was great sense of belonging and pride in the past. The push towards reform and putting profits before traditional values had changed the culture of railway ethos. Several old staff had taken early retirement packages as they became demoralised by the new management style and leaderships. Some sad staff told me that they would resign and went back to their families.
Most staff were forced to move to the new railway station which they could see so many flaws in the design of structures which would affect their working environment and their lives. Several old staff resigned and young people were recruited in their places. These young staff didn’t have the old railway culture and they didn’t treat passengers very kindly. The new railway station certainly made quite a few stakeholders very rich. The whole deal was conducted during a military coup so there was no parliamentary oversight of the budgets and the feasibility of such a costly project.
The Hua Lamphong station was used as site for film locations, filming of advertisements, exhibitions of new computer games and the release of new music videos. There was supposed to be a railway museum but there was no kind following on this project. I guessed it looked good on paper to have a museum at the old station to appease those who were against the transfer to the new station. At least the management tried to have some old trains on show on the platforms.
I was glad that the management plan to turn the old station into a complex of skyscrapers, condominiums, shopping and entertainment complex had been opposed by the public. So, the whole sweet plan had to collapse and many people’s dreams of getting rich quickly had disappeared. I hoped some of these corrupt politicians and civil servants wound be exposed one day so that they could be punished according to law.
Nothing ever stayed the same, changes were inevitable. So, I had learned the ways of the world with all its ups and downs. Sometimes, I was gratified to see the law of karma working promptly. But most of the time, I had to wait patiently for things to develop along their karmic journeys. I had to accept the reality that most people would corrupt when they had power. So, things in my country would deteriorate as time flew by each day.
The talk about the very fast train running from the south of China through Laos and eventually through Bangkok would be fully functioning in a few years. By that time, the Thai railway might have changed beyond my recognition. Lots of elderly people would stop traveling by trains together as they could no longer walk for a mile to get to the platform without any assistance with their luggage as they used to have at the old railway station.
The front of Hua Lamphong station and some details of the architecture from a website.
The designers forgot to take into consideration that our society was going to be like Japanese society. There would be more old people than young teenagers. The railway wasn’t designed to be friendly to the elderly and handicapped passengers. I could see the new railway turned into dilapidated place where people occasionally used train service as traveling had become prohibitive. The smart city project is coming and fifteen minute city would become the norm. So, the railway would never be able to pay back its debts. I couldn’t help wonder how the Thai railway would become in the near future.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.
