The End of the Southern-Andaman Railway Line: Kantang
At Trang Railway Station we’d just booked tickets to Surat Thani for the following day when I noticed that the track continued in the other direction as well, a half hour ride to Kantang.
A quick check at the time table showed that we could easily go there with the first train, spend almost 2 hours there before heading back to Trang and continue to Surat, piece of cake, right?
Financially we could survive this too as you can see....
One day later we discovered that it actually wasn’t that easy as it depended very much on trains riding on time and the Bangkok - Trang - Kantang train was seriously delayed.
From our original 2 hours only 40 minutes were left but as dedicated train junkies we went anyway.
The trip to Kantang was (very) relaxed and half an hour later we walked around the last railway station of the Southern-Andaman Railway Line.
Officially opened on 1st April 1913 this historic station is kept in excellent condition and was a sight for our sore eyes.
It was built in the classic King Rama VI reign architecture and painted in strong mustard-yellow and brown colors, very attractive.
Due to our ridiculous time limit we jumped on a ‘sidecar taxi’, drove to the harbor area and had lunch at a seafood restaurant whose owner had parked his own colorful motorcycle in front of it.
Afterwards we made a brief stop to admire some wall paintings and historic houses before returning at Kantang Station.
Kantang Station also has a tiny museum which boasts a wonderful naive painting of a steam locomotive as well as some old photos and equipment.
At Trang Station we’d already adjusted our Trang - Surat ticket to Kantang - Surat and once aboard we were good to go.
