The BP is reporting the flyover will go to allow the railway to take precedence. But only once studies have been completed to manage traffic .
We discussed about it 2 years ago when Robert reported about it the first time,
see here.
This new piece of news in English is very vague as usual. Thai friends told me about much different dates for construction works to start: 6 years later than mentioned in this news report (2026, not 2020; and to end by 2029!). If that was true, there would still be plenty of time for new developments and changes to come up.
This piece of news seems to clarify what I think was a bad translation and source of confusion in the previous report 2 years ago, when they talked about a tunnel:
At the junction where the railway is to cross the elevated bypass the track will pass through a tunnel, he said, adding the bridge in front of Sima Thani needs to be demolished to make way for the tunnel.
There will be no tunnels of course, but "the rail track will be laid under a flyover at the Pak Thong Chai Intersection" as mentioned in this new report: perhaps uselessly, because railway track there is already passing under the elevated bypass; or perhaps they intend to build an additional flyover for traffic somewhere around there. It remains all very vague.
How about the now existing u-turns under the bridge? How they plan to solve this issue? Do they plan to raise railroad tracks before this new junction or only shortly before trainstation (as stated in article)?
There's confusion between the railway junction with Bypass (by the Pak Thong Chai intersection) and the one with Mitthapap (by the Sima Thani). In my understanding, now that I read this new article, they plan to raise the tracks after junction with Bypass but before junction with Mitthapap. How will they manage with those u-turns? No idea for the moment, but I would guess for elevated u-turn bridges, although the whole thing wouldn't make much sense, as already remarked in the previous discussion: demolishing a still good road bridge to build two new ones? For what? Is the existing railway passage under that bridge too narrow for adding the second track?
