Old Thai-Cambodian railway bridge dismantled for construction of new one

SA KAEO, THAILAND, January 20 (TNA) - A removal has started for a 120-year-old steel railway bridge once linking Thailand's eastern Khlong Luek area with Cambodia's Poipet Town and the construction of a new one has been set to be completed in time for the formation of the ASEAN Community (AC) by the end of this year. Surachai Juengmanon, a railway bridge engineer of the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), on Tuesday supervised the work at the decaying bridge, which had not been used for nearly four decades due to impacts from a past civil war in neighboring Cambodia. Earlier, Cambodian Deputy Transport Minister Guang Sun and Thai Permanent Secretary for Transport Soithip Trisuddhi jointly presidec over a ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the construction of the new bridge on July 25, 2014. SRT then sought a state budget of 2.8 billion baht to build the new bridge and improve some 176 kilometer-rail tracks from the Khlong Sib Kao station in Chachoengsao Province in the Thai East to the bridge in Aranyaprathet District of the eastern border Sa Kaeo Province. The railway improvement is expected to support cross-border cargo transport and railway-based tourism between Thailand and Cambodia and relieve traffic through the Khlong Luek border crossing. The old Khlong Luek-Poipet railway bridge was built in approximately 1926 during the reign of Thailand's late King Rama VII. The Cambodian Civil War stopped Aranyaprathet-Poipet train services and the old bridge was closed, causing trains from Bangkok to have stopped at the Aranyaprathet station, about six kilometers away from the bridge. (TNA)