The Srimaharacha Timber Company Limited was situated in the coastal town of Si Racha in Chonburi Province, south-east of Bangkok. Not a great deal is known about this operation and almost the only information which has been published is in a short article in Continental Railway Journal (in 1996). The company operated a 750mm gauge railway which must have been quite extensive at one time. Although the oldest locomotive on the system dates from 1890, it is not impossible that it worked elsewhere. Latterly, logs were brought by truck to a number of stations along the line, and there loaded into trains which brought the material to the sawmill in Si Racha. Here there was a connection to a jetty used to export the timber.

Few visitors can have seen this delightful system at work. By the time Basil Roberts first visited it in June 1971, it was very much on its last legs and by March the following year appeared to be no longer in use. Curiously, most of the locomotives appear to have survived, some preserved (as noted) and others dumped near the site of a new (mattress!) factory operated by a company of the same name, inland from Si Racha. The CRJ article stated that the surviving locomotives were 'NOT FOR SALE' and what will happen to them is unknown.

So sit back and enjoy this Thai historical curiosity....