The State Railway of Thailand will use a substantial portion of the abandoned Hopewell transit project to build its Red Line electric railway from Bang Sue in Bangkok to Pathum Thani’s Rangsit area.
It will also use some of the infrastructure to extend the Airport Rail Link to link up Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports.
Soithip Trisuddhi, director of the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, said there were about 500 concrete pillars from the Hopewell project and the SRT could use 50-60% of them in the construction of the Red Line and the extension of the existing Airport Rail Link from Phaya Thai to Don Mueang airport.
Ms Soithip said transport authorities have yet to win the consent of the National Environment Board for the construction of the extended section of the Airport Rail Link. The board has rejected the project in three rounds of environmental impact assessments.
Meanwhile, the construction of the Red Line from Bang Sue to Rangsit cannot start because the bid winner, SU Joint Venture, quoted the cost at 31 billion baht while the cabinet had allocated only 27.17 billion baht for the project.
Jamroon Tangpaisalkit, deputy permanent secretary of the Transport Ministry, said a committee would be set up to discuss the quotation.
SRT Governor Yutthana Thapcharoen said officials of the SRT, the Engineering Institute of Thailand and the Asian Institute of Technology would examine the condition of Hopewell pillars tomorrow.
He said each pillar could bear a weight of up to 1,000 tonnes.
Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/283364/srt-to-reuse-many-pillars