# SOUTH EAST ASIA | High Speed Rail



## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*This Thread is all about the High Speed Rail in South East Asia.* 










*As according to political map, South East Asia included Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Timor Laste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.*










Some Proposed High Speed Rail in South East Asia (SEA)





































Original News : http://www.economist.com/node/17965601
*Integrating South-East Asia*

*China coming down the tracksA railway boom promises to tie South-East Asia together—and boost China’s sway*
Jan 20th 2011 | BANGKOK | from PRINT EDITION



THE rapid expansion of its high-speed railways has got China plenty of attention. Yet ambitions do not stop at the border. On its southern flank China is renewing a push to lay tracks to mainland South-East Asia. The region’s leaders have dreamed since the 1990s of seamless rail travel between Singapore and Kunming, capital of the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan. South-East Asia’s existing network of railways is creaking, patchy and underfunded. Most goods move about the region by lorry and ship. But that creates choke points while running up fuel bills. An integrated rail system could be just the ticket.

Enter China, chequebook in hand. It has recently signed agreements to build new lines in Laos and Thailand, while it extends its network from Kunming to the China-Laos border. These lines are meant to be ready by 2015. The benefits may be huge. Most countries along the route have already hitched their wagons to China’s outsize economy and are eager for more trade. China’s free-trade agreement with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which took effect a year ago, has cut tariffs on most traded goods. The region still has natural resources, which China is keen to strip.

Empire-builders love railways. Most of South-East Asia’s were laid during colonial rule, as Britain and France pushed inland. In a region with American leanings, China wants to bind its neighbours into an economic sphere with strategic weight. Laying lines into Myanmar, with a large but decrepit network, would add a coveted Indian Ocean port. More regional trade with its centre in Yunnan spreads wealth inland, another Chinese objective. Trains already shuttle between China and Vietnam, which has a north-south railway. This linkage opens up the possibility of a circuitous eastern route into South-East Asia, via Cambodia and Thailand. Both countries belong to the Greater Mekong Subregion, a grouping fostered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that also includes Vietnam, China, Laos and Myanmar. According to the ADB, it would cost $1.1 billion to build the missing links along this route, making it the cheapest way to connect the region. Some $7 billion more would be needed to upgrade existing lines and rolling-stock. By 2014, once this route is operating, it would carry almost 7m tonnes of cargo among Greater Mekong countries, rising to 26m tonnes by 2025, the ADB reckons. Greater Mekong countries duly backed the plan in August.



Yet China quickly upended this consensus. In December Laos said China would build a $7 billion high-speed railway from the border to its capital, Vientiane. Construction is set to begin in April. Meanwhile, Thailand is negotiating with China to build a connecting north-south line to Bangkok, using concessionary Chinese loans. ADB officials are left scratching their heads over what this means for the Vietnam-Cambodia route, including a long stretch that China had been expected to build but which now appears to be on the back burner.

On paper, the Laos-Thailand route is more direct, but it is also far more mountainous, with 190 kilometres (120 miles) of tunnels in Laos and countless bridges. Remote areas of Laos are also littered with unexploded bombs from the Vietnam war. None of this is likely to stop a country that laid a railway up to the Tibetan plateau.

In Thailand the hazards are more political. To get around the mighty, hidebound state operator, the Thai government proposes a new line using Chinese technology to run parallel to the existing one. A Thai-Chinese entity would rent the land from the state operator and build its own signals and stations. Handily, the route would pass through Thailand’s poor and politically disaffected north-east, giving a shot in the arm to the local economy.

Thailand says that fast passenger trains would reach speeds of 200 kilometres an hour, streets ahead of what currently pass for express trains. Tourists could ride luxury carriages to exotic destinations. A fast train, says Korbsak Sabhavasu, the government’s chief negotiator, is something Thailand needed 20 years ago. But Thailand’s treacherous politics may yet intrude, as any final agreement with China needs the nod from parliament. In an election year, this is no certainty.

Tourists and trainspotters may be tickled by a fast train to China. Yet the real point of modernising the railways is cargo. Intra-ASEAN trade is growing much faster than exports to developed markets. Nearly a quarter of Thailand’s exports go to South-East Asia, with another 11% (and rising) to China. Trains are more efficient and less polluting than lorries on all but the shortest routes. Peter Broch of the ADB estimates that a rail service from Bangkok to Phnom Penh would cut the price of moving a container by two-thirds compared with moving it by ship and lorry, as now.

Even without a railway network, the region is tying itself together. Roads have been upgraded, and customs procedures are less tape-bound than they were before. When Wang Er-Chern began trading agricultural produce in northern Thailand in the early 1990s, it took two weeks to send goods by road and ship via Laos to his native Yunnan. Today the journey has been shaved to two days. Mr Wang, prominent in the Thai Yunnan Commerce Association, says a fast rail link to Kunming would be nice. But he grumbles that business has already become less profitable as more Chinese traders have got in on the act. A trainload more may soon be on the way.

from PRINT EDITION | Asia


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## Alexriga (Nov 25, 2007)

South East Asia is future of the world's civilization and center of it. Keep on rocking guys!


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*THAILAND*



Setgabell said:


> รัฐบาลพรรคอะไรน้าาาา ที่ว่าลงทุนสายกรุงเทพ-เชียงใหม่ มันคุ้มค่ากับการลงทุนมากที่สุด ตอนนั้นไม่เห็นจะเดือดร้อน ตอนนี้ทำมาเป็นมีปากมีเสียง นี้แหละน้าสิ่งที่เขาเรียกว่า ตัวปุกปั่นความวุ้นวายทางการเมือง สงสัยคงจะถนัดนักแล ยุคสมัยนี้เขาช่วยกันพัฒนาบ้านเมืองแล้วมันไม่ควรจะมีการขัดแข่งขัดขากันอย่างที่คุณทำอยู่อีกเลย ได้โปรดดดดด


From Thai forum


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*THAILAND*



Codename B said:


> *Govt to move on high-speed rail projects*
> 
> Published: 27/12/2011 at 12:00 AM
> 
> ...


From Thai forum


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*THAILAND*



Codename B said:


> *Govt inks 70-billion-yuan swap deal with Beijing*
> 
> The Nation December 23, 2011 1:00 am
> 
> ...


From Thai Forum


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Thailand*








[/URL]


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Malaysia*



nazrey said:


> *Feasibility studies on high-speed KL-Singapore rail*
> By SHARIDAN M. ALI Tuesday March 8, 2011
> http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/stor...623&sec=business#12995572639891&if_height=642
> 
> ...


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Singapore*



nazrey said:


> funny pic I found
> 
> 
> 
> ...


From Malaysia Forum


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## wan11 (May 9, 2011)

khoojyh said:


> *Singapore*
> 
> 
> 
> From Malaysia Forum


Nice photoshop.


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## junstein (Oct 2, 2010)

HIGH SPEED BULLET TRAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES update last 2009





no info as of this moment


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore*



archstudent said:


> *Malaysia mulls high speed train link to Thailand*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Indonesia*

PDF format presentation 

http://www.gist.edu.sg/cmsresource/Travel%20conference/Java%20High%20Speed%20Train%20Project.pdf


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Indonesia*

Japan eyes study for bullet train in Indonesia

Kyodo
Posted at 10/17/2013 4:45 PM | Updated as of 10/17/2013 5:06 PM
JAKARTA - The Japanese government has agreed with Indonesia to conduct next year its first feasibility study on introducing Japan's bullet train technology to the Southeast Asian country, a source privy to the negotiations said Wednesday.

The envisioned study puts Japan a big step ahead of rivals including China and South Korea, and brings it closer to winning the contract, the source said.

Japan has been pushing strongly for its technology and expertise to be applied abroad in making infrastructure more efficient, including by building high-speed railway systems.

The Indonesian railway construction project is worth 50 trillion rupiah (about 450 billion yen), according to the source.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency will conduct a three-year study in connection with Indonesia's plan to build a high-speed railway system on Java Island, and is expected to sign a memorandum with the Indonesian government on Thursday at the earliest, the source said.

The study will look into costs and passenger demand, and ways to secure funding for the roughly 150-kilometer route connecting the Indonesian capital Jakarta to Bandung, the source said.

JICA will likely consider the prospect of operating an additional route from Bandung to Surabaya in eastern Java.

With Indonesia and other Asian nations keen to build high-speed railway links, the business opportunity for Japan is large as the combined potential railway routes will surpass 8,000 km, far larger than Japan's bullet train network covering 2,400 km, industry watchers said.

In 2011, the Indonesian government announced its vision to create a high-speed rail linking Jakarta and Surabaya, a center of commerce, as part of efforts to stimulate the country's economy.

Traveling at a maximum speed of 300 km per hour, the projected rail link would transport people over an estimated 730-km stretch in about three hours.

==Kyodo

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/10/17/13/japan-eyes-study-bullet-train-indonesia


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Malaysia*



nazrey said:


> *KL-Singapore rail tender open to international bidders*
> By Roziana Hamsawi Published: 2013/07/30
> http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_Ne...130730001553/Article/index_html#ixzz2ahXohvpL
> 
> ...


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## khoojyh (Aug 14, 2005)

*Philippines*

MANILA, Philippines – Lawmakers have renewed calls for the construction of a high-speed railway system connecting the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and the Clark International Airport (CIA), in hopes that the latter will become the country’s newest international gateway.
Several lawmakers, mostly from Central Luzon, have filed a resolution in Congress urging President Benigno Aquino III to prioritize the long sought-after high-speed railway system that will connect Clark, Pampanga to Metro Manila.
Experts and officials in the past have noted Clark’s potential to become the Philippines’ premier international gateway because of NAIA’s congestion and space limitations.
“(NAIA) has limited runway capacity and its land area can no longer be subject to expansion. It is at present insufficient to address the growing demands of air transportation system, thus affecting our international linkages especially in business and tourism,” Bulacan Representative Linabelle Ruth Villarica, among those who filed the resolution, said in a statement Saturday.
However, authorities have been unable to move NAIA’s operations to Clark because of the latter’s distance to the country capital. A multi-billion-dollar railway system, like those in other countries, is seen as a solution but critics claim it is too costly for a developing country like the Philippines.
But Villarica said the project should push through since the CIA is already fully operational and has available land for expansion. She also said that Clark is a tourist destination that will benefit from the project.
“The only missing link to make it a premier international airport and attract investors is a high speed railway system…. The unprecedented development of Central Luzon hinges on Clark becoming a premier international airport,” Villarica said.
Among those who filed the resolution was former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
It was during Arroyo’s administration that the North Rail project, which was supposed to connect Manila to Bulacan and Clark, was envisioned but was derailed due to reports of anomalies, high cost and contractual problems, among others.
House Resolution 230, which asks Aquino, through Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya, to construct the railway system was co-authored by Pampanga Reps. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao, Oscar Rodriguez , and Juan Pablo Bondoc; Tarlac Reps. Enrique Cojuangco, Susan Yap and Noel Villanueva; Bataan Reps. Herminia Roman, Enrique Garcia, Jr.; Zambales Reps. Jeffrey Khonghun and Cheryl Deloso-Montalla; Nueva Ecija Reps. Estrellita Suansing, Joseph Gilbert Violago, Czarina Umali and Magnolia Rosa Antonino-Nadres; Bulacan Reps. Ma. Victoria Sy-Alvarado, Gavini Pancho, and Joselito Andrew Mendoza; San Jose del Monte City Rep. Arturo Robes; Aurora Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo; CIBAC Reps. Sherwin Tugna and Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales; Butil Rep. Agapito Guanlao; and 1-Sagip Rep. Erlinda Santiago.


Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/505851...ilway-to-connect-clark-and-naia#ixzz2lXLXsz3c 
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http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/505851/lawmakers-push-for-high-speed-railway-to-connect-clark-and-naia


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