Ban Phachi Junction

Ayutthaya Province, Thailand

By Grant Cameron

June 22^nd, 2018

Railway sunrise!

As is now almost becoming a weekly habit, my pal and I met at 4:30AM (yes!) to go for our weekend sunrise shoot. We tend to know that we’ll do this, but always have difficulty in choosing where to go. This weekend, we decided on a drive past Ayutthaya, which we’ve visited many times, and found a lovely small town railway junction: Ban Phachi.

The reason for the early start is a mix of being able to find and shoot a sunrise, get great morning light, meet people when it is quieter, and of course cooler, this being Thailand . . and which also means we can get back late morning when the traffic is lighter that it might become later in the day.

Ban Phachi railway junction is a Class 1 Station and where the Northern and Northeastern SRT lines separate. According to Wikipedia the station serves 47 trains daily.

Some images of a General Electric CM22-7i diesel electric locomotive, using a Cummins KTTA-50-L engine.

If you look carefully, you'll notice something peculiar about the General Electric logo. This is not the first locomotive on which I've seen this, either it's because the engineers are unsure of the script, or they are playing a practical joke. If you can't spot it, I'll reveal the issue at the bottom of the page.

The 5:52 Ban Phachi (via Sam Sen) to Bangkok, train no. 342, arrived and departed exactly on time. I wonder if the presence of this gentleman had something to do with that. In case you are interested, the one way ticket cost is 19 Baht.

Aerial views

All images are facing west or south west, in other words towards Ayutthaya and Bangkok to the further south. In the main image, the 06:17 to Lopburi, train no. 303 was running about 8 minutes late; I guess no worse than British Railways!

It was lovely to see this old North British 4-6-0 no. 177 (built 1919) sitting there, and I took many images; this is just a few!

The station is apparently famous for its "Phachi" Coconut Ice Cream, normally sold by hawkers with trays walking along the platforms. This particular seller must still be plum tuckered out from all that walking the day before.

There are a number of of old carriages around, most in pretty poor states of repair and rusting away, unloved, but good material for photographers.

Some station signs, and in the main image, another of those Phachi coconut ice cream sellers still enjoying their rest.

The sun has now come up, our walk round and exploration of the station at an end, but our appetite has been whetted to visit another junction not too far away. We'll get there in 30 minutes . . and I'll post images of that visit in the next post.

Meanwhile, if you didn't spot what was wrong with the GE logo, it was upside down!

Getting There

As you can see from the map, Ban Phachi sits between Ayutthaya and Saraburi. The easiest way to get there, apart from by train of course (!), is to leave Bangkok heading north past Don Mueang Airport and follow Highway 32 to Ang Thong, switching to Highway 3056 and head north east. The GPS coordinates are shown below, but please note that they are for the entrance road to the station which is on your left hand side.