New metropolitan railway the “SRT Red Line” in Bangkok will open in March 2021

The “SRT Red Line” will finally open, which is the new metropolitan railway under construction along the existing lines around Bangkok of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT).

It has been revealed that the section between Rangsit (รังสิต, Pathum Thani) – Bang Sue (บางซื่อ, Bangkok) – Taling Chan (ตลิ่งชัน, same) will be open for free for a trial run period of 3 months from March 2021. After that, preparations will continue with a schedule that will officially open in November 2021. Several media outlets have reported that the Minister of Transport of Thailand announced it, who met with the representative of Thailand from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is cooperating with the project.

The Red Line vehicles are made by Hitachi, Japan and consist of 4 or 6-car trains. All 25 train units manufactured in Kudamatsu City, Yamaguchi Japan, are scheduled to be landed in Bangkok by the end of November 2020.

At the same time as the opening of the Red Line, the service of “Bang Sue Grand Station” (กลางบางซื่อ) will begin, which will be the new hub station for SRT. It is the largest railway station in Southeast Asia, built on the east side of the existing Bang Sue Junction Station (ชุมทางบางซื่อ) in the northeast of Bangkok. A huge station structure that looks like an airport terminal has already been completed and is waiting for commercial trains to enter.

The current SRT terminal is “Hua Lamphong Station” (หัวลำโพง) near the Yaowarat district, which is famous for Chinatown, in the southeast of Bangkok downtown, but It seems that the role as a central station will be gradually shifted to Bang Sue Grand Station.