A little background on Khok Salung.
Khok Salung is located 176.55km from Bangkok on the Bua Yai – Kaeng Khoi line. The station and railway track is elevated about 10 meters above street level at Khok Salung. This is the only SRT station that is elevated. The station at Khok Salung was built in 1999 after the former route was lost to the rising water of the recently completed Pasak Chonlasit Dam.
Prior to 1999 there was no rail service to Khok Salung. The entire town of Khok Salung is below the water level of the lake and is enclosed on almost all sides by 10 meter high earth and rock embankments. The railway has to cross the lake of Pasak Chonlasit Dam in 5 locations on huge concrete rail bridges that stretch for a total length of 18.1km. Some of the these rail bridges are built as wide curves this makes the rail bridges one of a kind in Thailand as all other rail bridges in Thailand are straight.
The bridges are simple in design, consisting of hundreds of support columns and a flat concrete bridge deck on which a ballasted single railway track is laid. The rails are not bolted directly to the bridge deck as is common in many other parts of the world. The signal system for this new section of railway via Khok Salung was recycled from the old line thus this new section of railway has full semaphore signalling rather than computer controlled signalling as is the case on all new lines.
However the Bua Yai – Kaeng Khoi line is a fairly recently built line by SRT standards opening in 3 stages between 1956 and 1967. The line was built to allow faster cargo train access to Issan. Through the bypassing of a very steep 50 km long 1 in 24 grade on the main line to Korat. That even today still requires cargo trains to be split in half so they can get up the grade on the Korat line. Using the Bua Yai line greatly reduces the grades removing the need for train splitting.
In terms of passenger train movements the Bua Yai – Kaeng Khoi line is rather under used and has one of the lowest densities of population for any railway in Thailand. Most passenger trains on this line are in the form of DMU's rather than loco hauled trains. This means daytime train variety is some what limited and on weekends there are no daytime cargo trains.
Train Timetable at Khok Salung station.
Outbound trains.
ORD 433: 6.20am to Bua Yai Junction.
EXP 75: 11.16am to Udon Thani.
ORD 439: 12.39pm to Bua Yai Junction.
ORD 437: 5.52pm to Lam Narai.
Inbound trains.
ORD 438: 6.40am to Kaeng Khoi Junction.
ORD 440: 9.39am to Kaeng Khoi Junction.
EXP 76: 1.52pm to Bangkok.
ORD 434: 4.44pm to Kaeng Khoi Junction.
It takes about 3 hours to reach Bangkok from Khok Salung. However delays are common and the trip can end up being over 4 hours long. All of the ORD trains require you to change at Kaeng Khoi to another train to reach Bangkok. These rural commuter trains (ORD) get fairly good patronage on weekdays but are very light on weekends.
Now onto the photographs from Khok Salung and Pasak Chonlasit Dam.
Khok Salung 176.55km between 6am and 2.30pm.
1. This is a shot of the signal box at the southern end of Khok Salung station. Unlike a lot of other signal boxes on this line it is not part of the main station building.
2. This is a general view shot of the main station building at Khok Salung station. Taken looking north along the single platform. As per almost all other SRT station Khok Salung has well kept station gardens.
3. This is a general view of the northern end of Khok Salung station. In the background is the lake and the mountains.
4. This is a general view of Khok Salung town. The town area is fairly tightly packed in but is made up of free standing homes. The town is about 10 meters below the station due to the wall around the lake.
5. This is another angle on Khok Salung station. This time taken looking south from the northern end of the platform. Compared to other stations on the Bua Yai line this station is fairly modern.
