After more than a year of delays, and not a little confusion, the Bangkok Airport Rail Link officially opened for business today. The new service provides a quick rail between the airport and a new "City Terminal" off Asoke Road near the Sukhumvit area. The journey takes just 15 minutes or so. The tracks are also used by the new City Line commuter service, and this is where a lot of confusion came into things in the last few months. The City Line has been in free public testing since June, and a lot of people – including journalists – have reported on the City Line as if it was the Airport Express. The Airport Express uses different trains.
Interior of the Airport Express Trains
As you can see in the picture above, the Airport Express trains have a ‘plush’ interior with padded seats, carpeting, overhead luggage racks and space for larger suitcases near every door. This is quite different from the City Line cars, which have hard plastic seats and no racks.
The station at the airport is on the lowest level. From arrivals on Level 2 you would go down two levels to reach the station. The level in between is where the public taxi queue is now located. The airport is already relatively well signed. At the station, look carefully for the signs to the trains you want to take. Oddly, they color-coded the trains – red for the Airport Express, blue for the City Line – but all the signs in the airport station are red, including those for the City Line.
There’s also a number of new food shops opened on the lower level outside the station. These a Subway, Basking Robins, Dunkin Donuts, 7-11 and a few others. The station is also were the tunnel to the Airport Hotel is located, but that path is still roped off, although it looks like it could open at any time.
The check-in counters at the Makassan City Terminal, but don’t expect to be using them any time soon.
The Makassan City Terminal is a large new complex next to the State Railway maintenance yard. The station is near the Petchburi Subway station, but as yet there are no signs in the station or between it and the terminal to help you find your way, and getting there requires you to cross a somewhat busy road, which you might not want to do with a heavy suitcase. The City Terminal has been designed so that you can check in for your flight, including checking your bags, at the terminal. This service won’t be available until around the end of the year, and you probably won’t be able to check bags at the City Terminal for ‘high security’ destinations like the US or the UK. The City Terminal seems huge and deserted at the moment, but that will probably change over the next few months.
There are a lot of little things, like non-functioning ticket machines, that will be fixed or improved over the next few months, so don’t take this early review as a final indication. The cost for the express Airport Express service is 100 Baht until the end of 2010. After that it will be 150 Baht. If you’re traveling alone and staying in the Sukhumvit area, the link will save you time and money. However, if you’re not alone and staying on the river, for example, using the link and then a taxi will likely cost you more than a taxi direct from the airport, and probably won’t save you much time. The City Line costs just 15 Baht per trip until the end of the year. After that, it will be 15 to 40 Baht per trip, depending on distance. I’ll probably use the Express or the City Line when I’m traveling light, since I live near a subway station. The total cost for the trip using the City Line, even after the price rise, will be about half the cost of a taxi.
