A new life for an RHB 2-8-0. Thai railways no 336 restored and exhibited in Bangkok

[kevsmiththai]

Over the years I have photographed a lot of trains in Thailand. SRT seem to have had a habit of not scrapping anything but not restoring anything either.

 

The 'demic' line at the main workshops at  Makkasan had ancient steam locos acquired from oversea including examples by Hanomag, Henschel, North British, Brush and an ex Japanese C56 2-6-0. All metre gauge

 

336 was one of a batch of 2-8-0s purchased from Switzerland and numbered in the series 331 to 348. I found it languishing at Makkasan with trees growing around it, Didn'[t take that much interest as I was a lot more interested in a rare Brush Engineering steam loco 0-6-0T no 61

 

 

 

 

In addition parked, strangeley, on Kamphaeng Phet road in Bang Sue was another random RHB tender

 

Nothing much seemed to be happening with this line of classic locos but the the new elevated Airport line was destined to come through Makkasan so something would have to change

 

 

 

a sister loco, 340. was plinthed elsewhere

 

Anyway

 

Since I last visited Thailand in 2009 much has changed. The once incredibly busy Hua Lamphong main station in Bangkok has been superceded by the new, Bang Sue Grand station, about 5 km to the north

Edited February 13 by kevsmiththai

[kevsmiththai]

It appears that many of the locos on the scrap line have been cosmetically to a very high standard and put on display at Hua lamphong

 

this video popped on youtube recently

 

https://youtu.be/B9yX73fQ_LA?si=cp8s7Ss7FvU1evDx

 

Where we see many of those locos. The only one that seems to be missing is the ex Japanese C56 2-6-0 733  which admittely looked pretty rough last time I saw it with a lot of bits missing