Inauguration of railway track linking Thailand and Laos

Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has opened a rail link over the Mekong river, linking Thailand and Laos, which makes a start for the first international link for Laos.

Two passenger trains will run the 30-minute return trip each day, serving about 500 people daily. The UN-backed Trans-Asian Railway now has nearly 74,700km of working track serving 29 countries, and estimates for completion range from 10 to 15 years.

The new railway line would greatly reduce export costs, as transport by lorry was only previously available. The ultimate aim was to “unlock” and transform a country with no direct access to the sea, Lao Railway Authority spokesman Sompong Pholsena told the Lao News Agency.

The track over the Friendship Bridge, with road links extending from Singapore to China’s port city of Shanghai took, 20 months to complete and was funded by Thailand at a cost of about 197m baht ($5.5m; £3.8m).

The new network is part of a plan conceived in the 1960s to connect Asia with a continuous railway, stretching west to Turkey and Russia, and north and east to China, Vietnam and South Korea. Decades of regional conflict and poverty have delayed the plan until recent years.