Laem Chabang Port opened the first stage of the government’s plan to make the Eastern Seaboard the logistics hub of Southeast Asia with the opening of the Rail Transportation Center.
Deputy Transport Minister Pairin Chuchotavon opened the new freight-loading complex on a 600-rai parcel between the B and C piers at the port Oct. 25.
The rail center project was launched in 2015 as part of the government’s push to build double-track freight and high-speed passenger rail lines linking the Eastern Seaboard with Bangkok, the Northeast and Myanmar. The plan later was folded into the Eastern Economic Corridor strategy.
The RTC operates as a single-transfer station, where up to eight trains can park on two sets of track. A rail-mounted gantry crane can load the trains with the equivalent of 28,000 twenty-foot shipping containers.
The center links to 4.3 kilometers of State Railway of Thailand double-track line.
The first phase of the RTC project can handle up to 1 million containers per year with a planned second stage doubling that.
