Railfan Trip to Suphanburi and Kanchanaburi

This is a live post of the railfan excursion trip to attend the River Kwai Bridge Week Festival in Kanchanaburi. Details of the trip are in the link below.

✅ Railfan Trip to Suphanburi and Kanchanaburi: https://www.thaitrainguide.com/trip-notes/notes-5 |

[2] Our first stop on the special excursion train is at Nakhon Pathom Station. Here we had 49 minutes to buy some food in the market. Some people went to make merit at the chedi which is a ten minute walk.

[3] Our second stop was at Nong Pla Duk Junction on the Southern Line. From here there are two branch lines. The first one to Kanchanaburi was built during the Second World War and is known these days as the Death Railway. The second was opened in 1963 and goes to Suphanburi.

[4] The signature dish at Nong Pla Duk Junction is the rice curry krathongs. Each one is only 10 Baht: pork and egg cooked in five spices, green curry, and two Penang curries – one with beef and the other with pork.

[5] Some of the permanent floods in Suphanburi province. Nice views from the train but not so nice for the communities that have to live like this for months on end.

[6] There are only two trains a day on the Suphanburi branch line and so we had to go slowly. Especially as we weren’t running to a timetable and that the other two trains run during the early morning and evening. No daylight trains here. So everyone was amazed to see us.

[7] This is Suphanburi Railway Station. There are only two trains a day on this branch line. The morning one leaves the station at 4:30am and the evening one arrives at 8:15pm.

[8] Our train went a little further to the very end of the line. There is no transport here and so we had arranged for songtaews to take us around Suphanburi. We paid 50 baht each for this. We have three stops but as the train was delayed by an hour I don’t think we can do all.

[9] We managed to do three stops during our tour of Suphanburi. The observation tower, Dragon Descendants Museum, and Wat Pa Lelai Worawihan. There’s no transport from the station but songtaews run on the main road about a 15-minute walk away. Or call 085-587-8905.

[10] I’m told that at the moment the trains to Suphanburi only run once a week. One train goes to Suphanburi on Sunday night and then returns to Bangkok the next morning at 4:30am. So not really good for tourism.

[11] From Suphanburi we took the branch line back to Nong Pla Duk Junction and then went up the other branch line to Kanchanaburi. Here we stopped at the main station first to take photos of the two steam locomotives that are being used in the light and sound show tonight.

[12] From Kanchanaburi Station we took the train the short distance to the River Kwai Bridge Halt. We are here tonight to watch the light and sound shows at 7:00pm and 8:30pm. Our train then will return to Bangkok at 11:00pm.

[13] Steam locomotive No.713 crossing the Bridge over the River Kwai. This locomotive was built by Hitachi in Japan and was in service between 1935 and 1982.