Airport Rail Link has pledged to maintain services for passengers by carrying out temporary repairs on its trains rather than taking them out of service for a full overhaul.
Four out of nine of the company's trains are currently out of service due to major maintenance work. The remaining five are running, but are also in need of repairs. The operator says it hopes to put in place temporary fixes which will keep those trains in service.
It insisted the service will not be scrapped and said it plans to increase the frequency of its limited train services to meet demand. Technicians are making partial repairs to the five trains to keep them running until next year at least.
The partial repairs include work on brakes and electrical systems. Technicians have removed some spare parts from the four trains out of service to use for the temporary fixes. "We will later find ways to acquire more major spare parts for the trains, to ensure they can run longer," said Pakorn Tangjetsakao, acting president of the SRT Electrified Train Co.
This is normal practice for the State Railway of Thailand (SRT), which oversees Airport Rail Link, Mr Pakorn said, adding that the repairs adhere to strict safety standards.
Making partial repairs to the trains is the only way the company can avoid suspending services completely, he said, adding that between 50,000-60,000 passengers use the rail line daily.
The company plans to buy new spare parts for the trains early next year.
All the company's trains are designed to run to a maximum distance of 1.3 million kilometres before being sent in for major maintenance.
The repairs should have been carried out once the trains clocked up 1 million kilometres, because maintenance work normally takes more than a year, including six months for finding a repairs company through a bidding process. "But there were some administrative problems and misunderstandings among shareholders," Mr Pakorn said.