Steam Locomotives at Hua Lamphong Station, Bangkok

This evening I'm at Hua Lamphong, Bangkok's main terminus station, to catch a glimpse of the returning steam excursion that set off from here to Ayutthaya at first light. Due back around 6PM, it quickly establishes normal Thai railway timing pattern by being expected up to two hours late. Hua Lamphong at night is like so many of the world's great railway stations, a seething mass of people setting off or arriving on journeys known only to themselves, or tearfully waving loved ones off. The State Railway of Thailand's (SRT) two Japanese-built steam locomotives shatter the conformity of the evening when they suddenly come chugging down platform 9, emerging from behind a powerful, beaming spotlight, belching plumes of steam and smoke from the front, sides and top and underneath. These ageing warriors that once ruled the iron roads of Thailand are back on their throne, Hua Lamphong, half a century after they clanked their way out of their natural hunting grounds for the last time and into the fading sunset.