I landed at Khon Kaen airport in North eastern Thailand, an area known as Issan, one Sunday morning looking to answer a question that had been haunting me for a few weeks. several sources refered to a surviving turntable in the vicinity of the railway station and yet having visited the area a few times I had never spotted it. Armed with a printout from Google satellite maps that showed a round object near the golf course I marched down there early afternoon and found not only the turntable but a 3 road roundhouse as well! the building is in quite good condition and is being used as a caddyshack by the greenkeepers, the reason I had not spotted it before was it is inside the golf course! Meanwhile behind me I became aware that unlike last time I was there when most of the freight traffic seemed to come through in the dark the north eastern line was getting busy. The priciple traffic as LPG trains going to and from Samran LPG terminal a few kilometres north of Khon Kaen. One of the husky Alsthom Co-Cos #4152 accelerates south with a rake of empties having picked up the token for the next single line section
northbound loaded LPG trains run in between the passenger services as required and General Electric GEA #4555 sets off having got the token. the engine will return light and stable at the station until required back at the LPG terminal Note the BHS Bogie open wagon in use as a barrier wagon just behind the locomotive Also seen going through Khon Kaen are cement trains which feature a mix of pressure discharge cement hoppers and containerised cement on BCF container flats Alsthom #4125 will follow the lunchtime passenger service to Nakhon Ratchasima. Once I get back to the U.K I will put some good action videos on showing these trains in action More soon
Kev, nice find. Thanks for the TT photo, and those of the freights. I assume from the photo that the tracks between the mainline (station?) and the TT have been removed.....?
YES. and as you can see the turntable pit is full of water with things (unknown) wriggling about in it. tomorrow I am going out to Kabin Buri to find another surviving turntable with the other surviving Brush 0-6-0T shunting engine sat on it. measuring and detail pics 'to the full' prior to making a 1/32nd model of it
That's a great set of pics. By the way do you live in Khon Kaen area? The turntable and workshop shed in your pics seems of a similar style to the one at paknam pho. Your videos are nicer than mine. What camera do you use for the videos and do you edit your videos. This is something I haven't worked out how to do yet.
I use a Panasonic NV-GS37 which used Mini DV tapes. this year I took a decent tripod which upped the weight in the suitcase a bit but paid dividends in the long term. I transfer them to my P.C using firewire and edit and save them in Windows movie maker. This automatically breaks the raw tape up into clips that you can drag and drop onto a timeline. I'm not a big fan of microsoft but movie maker does what it says on the package. This was also the first big workout for the EOS 450D for still photography and I managed to shoot 8 Gb of pictures on it in two weeks! I don't live in Khon Kaen but my eldest son married a thai girl from a nearby village and we come over once a year with them and our grandaughter. I usually hire a big Toyota pick up once we are there and set off exploring and leave the wife by the pool! I have done the North East line from Nakhon Ratchasima (Awesome!) up to Namphong so far and have spent a fair bit of time on the Eastern line as well. As I work through all of the stuff I will put new posts on More soon
more big freight The Alsthom Co-cos and General Electrics GEAs tend to predominate at Khon Kaen. GEA #4559 is seen arriving with an oil trainat the oil terminal with a long train of B.O.T oil tanks Alsthom ALS #4152 collects the single line token before accelerating hard out of the station at Khon Kaen towrds Samran. Once the LPG tanks have been delivered to Samran the loco's return light engine to Khon Kaen and stable in the yard until the return train is ready. Alsthom #4404 does just that here
What a fascinating topic. Those GE locomotives look extremely long, do you know how powerful they are? I look forward to the videos.
chasing freights Issan, the north east province of Thailand is a flat rural region where agriculture dominates. The roads are quiet and many of the villages are accesed by rough roads of dusty red soil. Exploring the area is a joy helped by hiring a crew cab pick-up. Don't be fobbed off with a saloon by the car hire firm, you need someting that will plug it's way through some bumpy, sandy terrain. One advantage is that you can set the tripod up in the back to get a bit more elevation for videoing although you will get some funny looks from the locals. Behind the Toyota you can see one of the other freight trains seen often in Khon Kaen. The military in Thailand seem to move a lot of material by rail and many examples of thses trains can be seen in the picture gallery of Rotfaithai.com This example was being loaded on my last day in Khon Kaen so I did not get to see it moving sadly. The wagons are the BFH bogie heavy flat wagons (my next modelling project in 1nM) One thing I did not see many of this time was the Hitachi HID Co-Cos although appeared in the yard having taken an LPG train to Samran
Both the General Electric GEA and Hitachi HID are rated at 2,500H.P. Not bad considering that power is being put through short, metre gauge, traction motors. The ubiquitous Alsthoms pump out 2,400 H.P. Some of these are apparently being remotored with MTU units but I don't know if the power is being upped. I hope his doesn't mean they are going to lose their throaty roar!
