Video – What to Do when the Commuter Train Passes through a Thai Market…

The market shown in the video is one located at Maeklong (Maekrong) a town near Bangkok. A news photo of the market from 2001 has the following caption:

Thai vegetable market vendors pull back temporary shades and their produce off a railway track to allow a cross-country train to pass through the middle of the town of Maekrong, 60 kilometers west of Bangkok, April 5, 2001. The bustling market, in the middle of the town, has to scramble from the tracks eight times a day as trains pass, a scene repeated in other rural centers and some city slums across Thailand every day.

In a blog entry on the Thailand Travel Blogs website, the blog writer, Richard Barrow, notes:

The journey was over very quickly and we soon entered a built up area. The outskirts of Maeklong. I knew that during the last 100 metres or so the train would pass through a market. Literally. I know it sounds strange but this was my planned highlight of the trip. I wanted to get pictures of the market stallholders pulling back their produce as we passed through the market. It had always intrigued me and I wanted to come and see for myself. For this event, I made sure I was at the front of the train. The door to the driver’s cabin was open and I asked him if it was OK if I took some pictures. He said “no problem”. As we approached a corner he sounded his whistle a number of times. Then, as we rounded the corner we were presented with the image in the above pictures. I thought I would see people rushing to grab their vegetables before it was run over by the train. But, they knew the train was coming and everything had been cleared!

And an article about the markets published on the Rex Features website notes that, in spite of regular interruptions by passing trains, the market works very well and only two people have died during the last twenty years.

posted with vodpod thanks to Bobb Bopp