How to buy tickets at the station...
It's easy to buy tickets yourself at the
station when you get to Thailand. All long-distance express
trains require a reservation, which can be made on the day of travel
or up to 60 days in advance. Reservations are computerised, and
the booking office at any main station can reserve seats or berths for
any journey in Thailand. Your ticket will have the train time
and your seat or berth number printed on it. 3rd class local
trains such as Bangkok-Ayutthaya or Bangkok-Kanchanaburi don't require
a reservation, you just turn up, buy a ticket from the ticket office
and hop on.
Buying tickets at Bangkok station...
Bangkok's main Hualamphong Station has a
well-organised reservation office, open daily 08:00-16:00. From
the main entrance, walk towards the platforms, and the reservation
office is tucked away on the extreme right, more or less level with
the entrance to the platforms. There's a queuing system:
When you enter, take a numbered ticket from the machine and wait until
your number appears on the display, directing you to a particular
reservation counter. The staff are friendly and helpful, and
there are ticket counters for English-speaking customers.
Bangkok also has a normal ticket office, open at all other times.
Other ways to buy Thai train tickets...
Although it's easy to book at the station,
if you want to travel at peak Thai holiday periods (for example,
around Christmas & New Year) or absolutely positively have to be on a
specific
train soon after arrival in Thailand, it's a good idea to book in
advance. You can do this in several ways: Online, using
the new system introduced in February 2009; By email direct to Thai
Railways; Or by email from one of several reputable Thai travel agencies
such as Traveller2000.
Each of these options is explained below.
Thai Railways have at
last launched online booking, at
www.thairailwayticket.com in conjunction with
their partners Prida
Pramote. The system will currently book 2nd class sleepers (but
not 1st class ones) on a few key routes & trains, including trains 1/2 & 13/14 between Bangkok & Chiang Mai,
train 69/70 between Bangkok & Nong Khai, and key trains
between Bangkok & Surat Thani or Hat Yai, for example. It'll
also now book the Bangkok-Chiang Mai daytime express railcars (trains
9-12). Once it is running
successfully they plan to extend it to other classes, routes & trains.
So give it a go! Bookings open 60 days before departure, you can
use this system from 60 days down to a minimum of 3 days before departure
(less than 3 days and you'll need to book at the station).
You need to register. It won't accept UK postcodes, so use that
old favourite '12345'. You pay securely by Visa or MasterCard
and print out your own ticket, which is valid for travel. You
can buy tickets for one or two people at a time, but not for more than
2 people unless you repeat the process. It doesn't offer a
choice of upper or lower berth, but if you get an upper at the end of
the booking (before payment), simply go back and reselect the train
and it may well offer you a lower. The emails that I receive now
usually report success with this new system, but
further feedback is always welcome.
Traveller Graham
Roberts reports (Feb 2009): "I have just used it successfully to
book some Thai train tickets. Besides the limitations stated
above, it will only accept bookings of 2 persons maximum (at a time)
and it will not allow you to select upper or lower berth. I
booked two tickets and was given one upper and one lower both
together, and then I made another booking and was given one upper, no
choice (it is in the same coach but some distance from the other two).
Credit card payment went through successfully. I made a booking
52 days ahead. The website states you can go up to 60 days in
advance. One is able to print off one’s tickets which look
similar to those you actually get in Thailand. Once in Thailand
I will try to change my tickets for the berths that I prefer."
2) Buy tickets by email direct to State
Railways of Thailand,
passenger-ser@railway.co.th...
To
book with the State Railways of Thailand, email them at least 15 days
(but less than 60 days) before your date of travel on
passenger-ser@railway.co.th or fax + 66 2 225 6068.
Your fax or e-mail must include the journey, date, train number,
departure time, class, seat or sleeper (upper or lower berth), number
of passengers, your name and e-mail address. You eventually will receive an e-mail
confirmation, and you then collect and pay for your tickets at Bangkok
Hualamphong
station booking office at least 1 hour before departure. Bookings
open 60 days before departure, but email bookings are only accepted
more than 15 days before departure to give them time to respond.
The Thai railways charge 200 Baht (£3 or $5) per email booking.
Booking this way normally works well, but recently several people have
said they waited up to 2 weeks for a reply, and one correspondent says
he waited a month, so you may just have to be patient. Some
people have recently (2009) reported that they haven't had a reply.
If you have any problems, or need to make a booking less than 15
days before departure, try using an agency such as Traveller2000 or Thaifocus as shown below.
You can book Thai train tickets through
several reputable Thai travel agencies such as those listed
above. These agencies will book trains for you and have
the tickets waiting for you at your hotel in Bangkok, or they can send
them to you in the UK by courier. Naturally, they charge a small
fee for this. Traveller 2000 charges the normal Thai Railways
fare plus (normally) a 300 Baht (£6/$10) booking fee but they now say
they'll reduce this to 150 Baht (£3/$5) if you say you're
been referred by seat61.com. You can pick up tickets at
their office or have them delivered to your hotel. They charge 400 Baht
(£6/$10) for airport delivery or whatever the actual overseas courier
costs to your home country. Five seat61 correspondents have
highly recommended
www.traveller2000.com, saying they give good and reliable service,
and two have recommended
www.thaifocus.com (though another has said that Thaifocus charges
higher fees) Shop around to check what fees each agency
charges before booking. Reservations open 60 days (2 months)
before departure, so you can't book before then.
People often ask, "Will I
be OK booking my Bangkok-Chiang Mai ticket at the station on the
day?". It's normally fairly easy to find seats or berths
available even on the day of travel or perhaps the day before,
especially if you aren't fussy about which train you take or in
which class. But trains do get fully booked at peak Thai holiday periods. If you're flexible and aren't travelling in a peak holiday period, you'll be fine
buying tickets when you get to Thailand. But if it's
important to be on a specific train in a specific class on a specific
date, then
book in advance as shown above, it's worth
the small agency
fee to be sure of a place.
You can get a feel for whether to
pre-book or just buy tickets when you get there by using the real-time
seat availability check below. This shows how many seats/berths remain
available on each train on key routes today, tomorrow
and the day after tomorrow. Would you have got a seat or berth in
the class you want on the train you want if you'd been trying to buy tickets today
for travel tomorrow?
How to check seat / berth
availability at the Thai Railways website...
To get a feel for how quickly Thai trains get
booked up, there's a seat availability check on the Thai Railways
website, which will show you how many seats remain available in each
class on each train on each date over the next month. The
English version hasn't worked for some years, but the Thai version
works, so here's how to use it, with thanks to traveller Bob
McCormick:
-
Go to
www.railway.co.th/seatcheck2/aseat.asp. It's in Thai, but
don't panic, here's the translation.
-
The first drop-down box is for the
route. The options are:
Top = Bangkok to Chiang
Mai (Northern Line)
Middle = Bangkok to Hua
Hin, Surat Thani, Hat Yai, Butterworth (Southern Line)
Bottom = Bangkok to Nong
Khai (for Vientiane), Ubon Ratchathani (Northeastern Line)
-
The second drop-down box
is for direction.
Top
option = Trains leaving Bangkok
Lower option = Trains
heading towards Bangkok
-
The next three fields are day, month, year
(Remember that 2009 = 2552 in the Thai calendar!). Use two digits for
'month', so January = 01.
-
Click the button and you'll get a summary
of seat or berth availability in each class on each train, in
English. Easy when you know how!
