christianpfc wrote: ↑Fri Apr 25, 2025 8:14 pm
It's all planned, financed and built by China.
The railway station in Khon Kaen is indeed humongous. But it's better to build bigger now, than having to up-size in a few decades?
There is an anecdote about when the London sewer was built, the chief engineer requested everything one unit bigger than required, and that's how it is still in use today as it was built.
China might finance & build it, but I bet Laos is paying back the debt on that finance.
Why might Khon Kaen require a bigger train station in a few decades ?
1 The population of Thailand is not growing.
2 The station could manage trains 5x the length of the current trains. They run 4 trains per day in each direction. They could easily run 4 per hour in each direction, as do the modest railway stations near me in the UK. To get people using the trains, a frequent service is helpful. So I reckon Khon Kaen could cope with 50 times the number of passengers currently using it.
3 It appears the plan is to build a separate elevated high speed station for Khon Kaen. The artists impressions show a different building to the current one. If they offer a good high speed service, that will reduce demand on the old lines.
As for Mr Bazalgette and his sewers in London, well the population of London was growing rapidly. Also, his sewers were built to last, unlike most things in Thailand.
