Chumphon Railway Station


Location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/s8SideRsba7YDSuv7

Chumphon Train Station is 486.53 km from Bangkok and can be found on the western side of town.
The original station was constructed in 1916. The station building was rebuilt in 1948 in its current style after the original building was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.
However would guess this building's days are numbered for a new ticket office and associated buildings have been constructed. These buildings are part of the duel track program being the upgrading of the line to Bangkok.
On the approach road to the Station are three old steam locomotives. One is a scale model of a steam locomotive (No. 9), with the larger two being decommissioned steam engines.
Lining the approach road is a row of wooden railway staff houses. These houses date back to a much earlier era when State Railways of Thailand gave more generous benefits to their staff. The gates to some of the houses still show the SRT logo in the iron work. The houses themselves are interesting as they are wooden on tall columns raising the floor of the house at least 3 meters off the ground. This being a traditional design of housing at the time in the South of Thailand, in areas prone to flooding.
Chumphon marshaling yards are rather large for a provincial town, which is not the terminus of the rail line. The marshaling yards had been expanded when the Japanese occupied Thailand. Chumphon station became an important engineering and supply base for a new railway across to Ranong. This railway line only operated for a short period being destroyed by Allied bombing. Full story can be found in a seperate blog - Kra Isthmus Railway

Comments

  1. Wayne Brines4 August 2018 at 22:08

    Chumphon was the location where the two sides of the Southern Line construction met, one from Thon Buri, one from U-Taphao Junction (Hat Yai). This was completed on 17 September 1916, and services started running from Thon Buri to U-Taphao, stopping at Chumphon and Thung Song Junction for fueling and resting (at the time no services ran at night). In 1922, night services became available.

    Chumphon was a water and wood refueling station for steam locomotives, as well as a place for reducing carriages going further south.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wayne Brines4 August 2018 at 22:10

    On the site, there are two decommissioned locomotives:

    178 Unit No. 21810 (North British Locomotive Company)
    235 Unit No. 59441 (Baldwin Locomotive Works)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment