Makkasan Station is a station on the Airport Rail Link (ARL) connecting central Bangkok to Suvarnabhumi Airport. It’s a grand station from the outside, but on the inside it’s a ghost town.
[City Air Terminal at Makkasan Station, now off-limits to passengers.]
The station was built with check-in counters for flights, so you could check-in and get an express train to the airport. The express train and check-in service no longer operate, and the airport train now runs a stopping-all-stations service.
[Airport Rail Link City Line at Makkasan.]
The ARL will become part of the High-Speed Rail Linking Three Airports Project, which will revive the fortunes of the airport rail service. There are still problems with Makkasan Station and surrounding rail services that need to be addressed.
This article outlines the problems of Makkasan station and how they can be fixed.
About the ARL and Makkasan Station
The ARL opened in August 2010 and it originally offered an express service to the airport. The express service ran from Phaya Thai – Makkasan – Suvarnabhumi, with Makkasan being the City Air Terminal
Thai Airways offered a check-in facility at the station, so you could check your bag and get on the train. This is similar to what already operates at Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, to name two examples. Checked bags were loaded into a special compartment at the end of the train, where they were then transferred to baggage handlers at the airport.
The Airport Rail Link Express Line was suspended in September 2014 due to a shortage of rolling stock. The line now only operates the Airport Rail Link City Line, which stops at all 8 stations on the line.
[Stations of the Airport Rail Link City Line.]
The City Air Terminal check-in service was also cancelled in September 2014 as it never gained popularity. At one point only 20 passengers per month were using the service.
[Flight information display at Makkasan Station.]
Since the closure of the express service, the ARL has been reduced to a commuter railway that happens to go to the airport. This line has become an integral part of Bangkok’s rail transit system for urban commuters.
The top section of Makkasan is open, but the cavernous departure hall that was built for airport check-in is closed.
Makkasan – So close yet so far
Makkasan is 2 km from the Asok/Sukhumvit Road intersection (one of the most central intersections of the city), so it’s in a great location when you look on the map. It’s more central than Hua Lamphong or Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, yet somehow it failed as an express airport station.
One of the problems is that Makkasan Station is in an area that gets clogged with car traffic. It can be less hassle to just get the taxi to the nearest elevated motorway entrance for the airport.
[Traffic on Asoke-Dindaeng Rd at Makasan Station.]
Another problem with Makkasan is there is only one urban transit line connected to the station (the MRT Blue Line). Big railway terminals around the world have multiple transit lines connecting the station.
The MRT Blue Line is a useful line as it stops at the major tourist areas of Sukhumvit Road and Silom Road. The extra friction of transferring makes it less appealing. Even though Sukhumvit Road is one stop away on the MRT, you then need to do a cumbersome transfer from Asok MRT to Sukhumvit BTS if you are staying anywhere else along Sukhumvit Road. You also need two separate tickets because the ticketing system isn’t unified.
All of this travel friction compounds with every journey. If Bangkok wants more people to take the train, they need to continually work on removing friction across the entire network.
The station of the East
Big cities (such as Paris, London, and Beijing) have multiple terminus stations. Makkasan should have been the Gare de l’Est of Bangkok, the terminal station for trains to the east.
Makkasan as Bangkok East Station would have been ideal for services to Pattaya/Rayong and Aranyaprathet, with future services to Cambodia.
The problem with Makkasan is that it was built to only serve the Airport Rail Link. Despite the massive size of the station, there are only 4 platforms.
The mixed-gauge mess (metre-gauge and standard-gauge in one corridor)
[The SRT metre-gauge Eastern Line running alongside Makkasan Station.]
Makkasan’s problems are tied to the mixed-gauge mess that the SRT has created for itself. I have written about the mixed-gauge mess of Thailand’s railways, and this is causing planning problems for Makkasan
A problem that hasn’t been resolved is what to do with the Red Line commuter railway in the eastern corridor.
The SRT Light Red Line eastern extension (Bang Sue–Phaya Thai–Makkasan–Hua Mak) follows the same path as the proposed 3-airport railway link. The problem is that the 3-airport line is standard gauge, while the Light Red Line is metre gauge. If the Light Red Line extension is built, it will be a separate railway that runs alongside the 3-airport line.
Only one of these lines need to exist. The fact that the two lines have gotten this far into planning is astounding.
If you think that sounds like a ridiculous plan, the SRT are already building a metre-gauge and standard-gauge railway alongside each other to Nong Khai.
What the SRT should have done was to have a long-term plan to convert the entire network to the standard gauge. Instead, we are stuck with this mixed-gauge mess.
The sensible solution would be to scrap the SRT Light Red Line extension plan and run a commuter line on the 3-Airport line. The problem with this idea is that the current ARL line (Phaya Thai – Makkasan – Suvarnabhumi) is on two lines with a passing loop at Hua Mak (between Makkasan and Suvarnabhumi).
[Hua Mak Station built with passing loop, and the metre-gauge Eastern Line.]
There is not enough room on the two lines of the ARL to run a high-speed service and commuter railway with a reasonable amount of frequencies. The ARL should have been built with 4 lines for the entire length.
[The elevated 2-line ARL should have been built with 4 lines.]
Another problem is what to do with the SRT metre-gauge line that runs alongside the ARL line. There is an SRT station under Makkasan that they didn’t consider incorporating into Makkasan. This station/platform is called Asok (not to be confused with Asok BTS Station).
[Makkasan ARL Station above Asok SRT Station.]
There is another SRT Makkasan station to the west of Makkasan ARL Station.
[Map of railways around Makkasan.]
There are no metre-gauge platforms at Makkasan, or any spare platforms to include future services, so that brings me to how to fix this problem.
How to fix Makkasan and make it the Station of the East
[View of City Line from City Air Terminal.]
Makkasan Station should have been built to serve all of the railways in this corridor (ARL, Commuter Rail, and SRT long-distance services) and integrate with urban transit (MRT Blue Line and proposed Light Blue Line).
Makkasan has 4 platforms for the ARL, and the station was built without any consideration to add more platforms. Makkasan might be the world’s largest station with the fewest amount of platforms.
[The grand Makkasan City Air Terminal next to the ARL platforms.]
Adding more platforms to Makkasan will require a major rebuild of the station. It will be expensive, but it will be more expensive in the long-term to not do anything. The expense will be worth it to make it a useful station.
Whenever I visit Makkasan I try to imagine how to fix the station and where to add extra platforms. Adding more platforms would require the roof to be torn down.
[Is the SRT bold enough to rip up Makkasan and try again?]
Something else that struck me during my wanders around Makkasan is how ugly the front of the building is. The front of the building has a road inside for departure drop-offs. The building resembles a giant car park with a designer roof.
[Car park or grand central railway terminal?]
Most of the station is not open to the public, so they could redevelop this area without disrupting services on the current ARL/future 3-airport line.
[Empty Makkasan Station.]
Here are the platforms that should have been built the first time. If the SRT are bold enough, they should redevelop the station to include these platforms.
ARL/3-Airport Railway
– 3-Airport Express: (2 Platforms)
– 3-Airport Commuter: (2 Platforms)
These are the platforms that currently exist at Makkasan. The express service isn’t running at the moment, so it’s only the City Line that is running. This is already operating as a de facto commuter line. Ideally, this would be running more frequently, but as has already been mentioned, the big problem is the 2-line track serving express and commuter services.
[The current 4 platforms at Makkasan Station.]
Rayong-Chanthaburi-Trat Line
– Trat Line (2 Platforms)
The proposed 3-Airport line will go to U-Tapao International Airport in Rayong Province. There were calls to extend the line through Rayong to Chanthaburi and Trat, but that idea has been dismissed.
It would be hard to justify a high-speed railway to Trat when a high-speed railway to Chiang Mai is still stuck in planning. An extension to Trat might have stood a chance if it was a regular inter-city railway (a speed of 160 km/h would have been ideal). It would have been good as a long-term goal to keep extending the line through the provinces of Eastern Thailand.
A better plan would have been that the entire SRT network was converted to a standard-gauge system with semi-high-speed railways (160 km/h) operating on all of the intercity services. Do we really need the high-speed service to Pattaya and U-Tapao?
High-speed lines would be reserved for international lines and Chiang Mai. This brings us to the next branch.
Aranyaprathet Branch
[SRT Train at Asok under Makkasan.]
– Aranyaprathet Main Line (2 Platforms)
– Aranyaprathet/Cambodia HSR (2 Platforms)
With Makkasan as the Gare de l’Est, there would also be separate platforms for the Aranyaprathet Main Line. 2 platforms for the regional line that stops all stations, and 2 platforms for a future high-speed railway to Cambodia.
There is currently no plan for a high-sped railway to Aranyaprathet, but they should allow for this in the future.
Cambodia is planning to convert the Phnom Penh to Poipet line into a standard-gauge railway, and there are even suggestions of a high-speed railway. That might seem unrealistic, but the same could be said for the Laos-China Railway before it was built.
Cambodia is more open to involvement from China to rebuild the railways, so don’t discount a future Bangkok to Phnom Penh high-speed railway (or at least the Cambodian section being high-speed). Cambodia and Vietnam are also planning (or dreaming about) a high-speed railway from Phnom Penh to HCMC. If that happens, then maybe we will see “Ho Chi Minh City” on the future departure board of the Makkasan Grand Eastern Station.
I have been going on about how Thailand should have converted the national rail network from metre-gauge to standard-gauge, and it’s not just me who is beating this drum. A Cambodian minister “asked his Thai counterpart to upgrade a railroad width to 1.435 metres to enhance transportation more effectively”.
The SRT should be questioning their decision to keep building on the metre-gauge if they are being gauge-shamed by Cambodia.
Freight line
– Freight Line (1 Platform)
Another consideration is what to do with freight services. The single metre-gauge line of the Eastern Line is also used for freight. Should a separate freight line be built above ground, or should the current single line remain only for freight?
[Freight train on the Eastern Line alongside Makkasan Station.]
It would be good to remove level crossings in central Bangkok, but this would be an additional expense. The freight line would have to be built outside Makkasan Station as you wouldn’t want diesel engines running through the passenger platforms.
[Freight train underneath the elevated ARL of Bangkok.]
The big problem with what to do with the Eastern Line is that the ARL line already takes up space in this narrow corridor. To build more lines in this corridor would mean that the Eastern Line is shut down so they can build pillars in this space.
Connecting Makkasan to the metro and future Makkasan factory redevelopment
Makkasan is currently connected to Petchaburi Station on the MRT Blue line via a covered walkway. This is a good interchange considering the walking distance, but there is always room for improvement.
[Makkasan ARL to Petchaburi MRT walkway.]
I would make an underground plaza where you can enter the MRT Blue Line from inside Makkasan. This underground plaza would then extend to the north side of the station into the future redevelopment area of the Makkasan Train Factory and railway yards.
[Empty land next to Makkasan Station viewed from Din Daeng Rd.]
While this station redevelopment is underway, they could also reserve a space for the Light Blue Line Monorail that is proposed in the future Bangkok mass rapid transit system. It would be good if it was built so it can interchange with the MRT Blue Line.
[Light Blue Line according to the official Bangkok transit plan (M-MAP2).]
Can Makkasan be revived?
The water-stained concrete hulk of Makkasan Station currently stands as a monument to bad planning of the city and national railways. It also highlights how better planning was needed to integrate the terminal station into its surroundings.
[Water-stained concrete matching the rainy season sky of Bangkok.]
The good news is that Makkasan can be revived. Even without the radical redevelopment plan that I have outlined, the station should become more lively with the rail link to the 3 airports and Pattaya. The current train from Bangkok to Pattaya takes over 3 and a half hours to travel 155 km. The new train will travel from Makkasan to Pattaya in under an hour.
Another catalyst for change is the eventual redevelopment of the Makkasan Factory land. Whatever happens to this land (mall, park, railway museum, or all of these), the redevelopment of Makkasan Station should be included in the plan.
I would completely redesign the front of Makkasan Station so it no longer looks like a car park. This station should look like a grand station, and it should be integrated into the future Makkasan Factory land redevelopment. Make it a place that people want to hang out at and that commuters want to use.
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a very interesting analysis and highlights a gross failure of strategic planing which given all the expenditure on public transport infrastructure in Thailand over the last 25 years is very disapointing
Great article,
From the day this opened I smashed my head at the terrible design.
Get off the escalator and you walk into a wall of people.
The location, as you mentioned, is one of the worst traffic juggernauts in the city.
How this was ever built where it is, as it was, is truly a statement in complete and utter waste of funds and time.
I hope someone reads your article and can improve this structure.
Thanks Scott! I hope that some drastic changes are made to revitalise this area.