Railways to resume full service in upper South, not three border provinces
- Monday, October 26, 2009, 22:21
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Railways to resume full service in upper South, not three border provinces
SONGKHLA, Oct 26 (TNA) – Scheduled local train services in Thailand’s southern provinces are expected to fully resume Monday, except in the three violence-plagued provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.
Railway services in the upper southern provinces could resume all routes after 12 locomotives were mechanically certified, and seven engines are still under maintenance at the railway yards at Hat Yai Junction.
However, all routes will stop at Hat Yai station and services in all three southernmost provinces are suspended indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the engineer interns from the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) Railway Engineering School who have been allowed to work as engine drivers will arrive at Hat Yai on Monday.
SRT national labour union president Sawit Kaewwan met with the Hat Yai union members to discuss locomotive maintenance to ensure the safety of passengers and train services in the deep South.
Mr Sawit urged the SRT executives to urgently redress safety issues for the entire national railways service to have clear, common practices particularly in the high-risk three southern provinces.
The SRT union meets Monday with the State Enterprise Labour Relations Confederation and would hold a news conference to announce its position and outline their next movements.
The Hat Yai union branch earlier reasserted that locomotive maintenance was needed, and many workers asked for holidays or sick leave and remained absent from their duties.
Rail services in the South were suspended October 16, but have resumed in some places.
The union said that workers are not confident having aging locomotives and demanded that the locomotives and their trailers must be fully repaired and declared fit for operation, and that SRT management should not force railway workers to operate trains with defective equipment.
Negotiations with the minister of transport must take place as soon as possible.
Their action came after a derailment in the resort town of Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan province October 5 which left seven passengers dead and injured nearly 90 others. (TNA)
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