English
ภาษาไทย
Taksin Bridge (Saphan Taksin) in Bangkok
Taksin Bridge (Thai: สะพานตากสิน or สะพานสมเด็จพระเจ้าตากสิน) is a bridge over the Chao Phraya River in Thailand that connects the districts Bang Rak and Khlong San. It is named after a former king of Thailand and should be pronounced sà-paan dtàak-sĭn and not tak-sĭn which happens to be the name of the exiled Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The bridge was built from pre-stressed concrete girders and has three spans of 66, 92, and 66 m. The total length of the bridge, including approaches, measures a sizable 1,791 meters. It was originally built with two carriageways separated by a large gap to accommodate a mass transport system which was later canceled and then replaced much later by the BTS Skytrain. Taksin Bridge now carries six lanes of roadway and the BTS line which comprises a double track over the bridge but only a single track at the BTS station. There are pedestrian sidewalks on both sides of the bridge.
The approach road and BTS line pass above Suan Pa Chalerm Phrakiat local park in Khlong San District.
Construction started: February 1, 1979
Opened to traffic: May 6, 1982
Cost of construction: THB 619,994,537
Comments
Construction for Skytrain
The bridge was not only built with the gap for the Skytrain, the foundations for the Skytrain pillars were already built as well - I remember that when I was in Bangkok the first time and took the Express boat from thje Taksin pier I wondered about the empty concrete block in the river between the actual bridge pillars.
And to be correct, the gap was not built for the BTS SkyTrain, but for the Lavallin SkyTrain, the precursor project abandoned in the early 1990s. This is even more noticeable at the Phra Pok Klao bridge (the one right next to Memorial bridge), where not only the foundations were built but the whole viaduct. Maybe that'll be used in the subway extension.
Bottleneck at Taksin Bridge
Andy (Maenam), you're quite right - the gap was originally made for the mass transport project that was later canceled. I did mention this in the article--albeit briefly--and if time allows I'll try to do some more research and add further details.
As an aside, I wonder why they left room for only a single track, as it now presents a bottleneck for the BTS skytrain service. Presumably it all came down to cost and projections of how many trains they would be running.
Skytrain double tracking
The viaduct is wide enough for double tracking, and in fact it IS double tracked over the bridge - take a look at the April 2007 photo on this 2bangkok page. The bottleneck is the Saphan Taksin station, there wasn't enough space to build that with tracks on both sides of the platform that close to the bridge, at least not that close to the bridge.
I guess the answers on why this happened as well as whether there are plans to double track that station are somewhere hidden in the forum of 2bangkok, but it's just one lengthy thread on the whole Taksin extension...
Post new comment