A picture taken at the 'I & C Seminar' held at the conclusion of the Project
The first three or four visits I made to Thailand were on business. We'd concluded an agreement with G.E.C. to design and supply selective call telephone equipment for use on Thai State Railways.
The specification was clearly written around electro-mechanical equipment and much later I found some details of a quite old Japanese system which I imagine formed the basis of the Japanese tender. But we'd come up with what we thought was a fairly elegant approach using a microprocessor, enabling us to show quite significant cost savings which may have helped G.E.C. to secure the main contract.
I quite looked forward to the possibility of visiting Thailand as the contract proceeded. I was placed in a very good hotel - the Hilton at Nai Lert Park. The only down side was the mosquitoes, particularly in the evening, which were attracted by the number of canals in the vicinity. G.E.C. had a resident Project Manager, Phil, supported by a number of engineers based at the offices of the local agents, Summit Engineering. I made a number of good friends within Summit, especially Dheb and Kamthorn and I was treated with great courtesy. In addition to technical work carried out at the offices, I attended a number of meetings with the client, Thai State Railways, and the Japanese consultants. Sometimes there were clashes of culture and things could become difficult but my role was principally advisory and technical so I avoided the real rough-and-tumble.
As the installation work got under way, we ourselves had an Installation Manager, Peter, on site, to assist with installation problems and train the large numbers of staff who had to become conversant with the new equipment. Equipment was installed at over 600 locations throughout Thailand so there was quite a lot a travelling within Thailand.
On my various visits to Thailand, I was always based in Bangkok but I myself made trips to Chiang Mai in the North, Hat Yai in the South, Ubon Ratchathani in the East and along many of the branch railways. Of course, this travelling gave me the opportunity to study the railway, which delighted me. Steam had been eliminated some years earlier but there were occasional steam-hauled enthusiast specials, although I never managed to synchronise my visits with one of these trips.
Occasionally, when problems arose, I went out in the field to carry out tests or investigate the difficulty. I well remember one branch line where unacceptable levels of noise were present on the telephone circuits, despite the circuits themselves testing correctly. Eventually, we persuaded the railway to lay on a motorised inspection trolley so that we could drive along this branch looking for possible external factors. About halfway along the branch, we found one of the largest electrical substations I've ever seen, right next to the railway and with numerous overhead cables crossing or running parallel to the railway. The induction from this installation was more than enough to account for the problems but people were either unaware of its existence or failed to see its relevance. Once we'd identified the problem, we were able to mitigate the effects.
Eventually, after a great many 'alarums and excursions', the project was completed towards the end of 1989 and a conference was organised at a Bangkok hotel where G.E.C. outlined what had been achieved to a large group of senior managers from the railway. I was in charge of setting up a comprehensive working demonstration of the equipment which we'd supplied and I also addressed the conference briefly about our involvement. You can see pictures of this event here.
All-in-all, it was a wonderful experience, leaving me with a number of new friends and an abiding love of Thailand.
I've been back to Thailand a number of times since (for instance, see Thai Railfan Club and various posts on subsequent travels through the Far East, particularly Far East Tour, 2005).
My pictures
My 35mm pictures taken around Thai Railways as we commissioned the train despatcher equipment and pictures of the I&C Seminar have been scanned and can be found below:-
Railways in Thailand (1989).
Train Despatcher Project I & C Seminar: 1-Sep-1989
[Links to pictures added 29-Oct-2015]
