The medieval Dutch canonical cleric Thomas van Kempen once said, "The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid." Kempen the cleric was obviously talking in a metaphorical sense, using basic construction jargon to drive home his point on spiritual development.
It is, after all, common sense that any structure must be rooted on a solid foundation -- one that is capable of supporting not just the weight, but the intended purpose of said structure. The same goes with a project in the modern age -- regardless of whether or not the project has a physical component to it -- without a solid foundation to start with, any project is doomed to fail.
Last month, Malaysian Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong and his Thai counterpart Saksayam Chidchob signed an MoU to study the feasibility of constructing a proposed Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur high-speed rail (HSR) project. On paper, it sounded like a great idea. If the project ever makes it past the drawing board, the line will connect around 30 million people living in both cities. It will provide a faster, more efficient alternative to the now-defunct Train 35, or the "International Express", which used to connect Bangkok to Fort Butterworth in Penang. (The service now terminates in Padang Besar, forcing passengers to disembark and connect to another Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) service to get to their destination).
Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes quite obvious the lofty dream of providing a high-speed rail connection between the two metropolises is not grounded in any solid foundation. First of all, for the service to be commercially viable -- if not, sustainable -- it has to be able to compete with airliners, which are capable of connecting the city pair in under two hours. On last count, the city pair is served by at least 12 direct flights. High-speed rail will find it hard to match the flexibility, especially at the initial stages of operation, without spending even more to promote and/or subsidise the service to make it attractive to passengers.
Paired with the fact that both cities are home to numerous low-cost carriers whose whole businesses are based on providing connections at the lowest possible fares, the future operator of the proposed high-speed trains -- which could only promise to link the cities in under six hours, given the limitations of existing technology and terrain -- will find it hard to justify the high investment cost of the project. Furthermore, adding to the high investment cost is the price of providing security along the restive South, which the line will have to cross to get to Bangkok.
Other than die-hard rail fans, and travellers whose destinations are not served by existing schedule passenger services -- of which there aren't many -- who else would sit in a train that is likely to be more expensive, unless it is subsidised by the State Railway of Thailand, which as of now, is basically a bankrupt agency, and takes three times as long?
Before making the leap into high-speed trains, both governments will be better served by improving the state of their current services. While KTM has electrified double-tracks running from KL to the Thai border, the ageing diesel SRT services still have to share tracks with freight trains, causing massive delays. Addressing these niggles will benefit citizens of both nations much more than a prestige project like high-speed rail would.