In the last two decades, Thailand has rapidly expanded its railway system, especially, the mass transit railway in Bangkok. For developing the Thai railway system under such extreme growth, the Thai railway industry and operators need to learn very fast in coping with numerous challenges and it is inevitable to collaborate or to gain support from partners who has long-time experiences. By this reason, a Joint-Declaration-of-Intent (JDI) between the Thai government and the Federal government of Germany was initiated in 2015. Both governments have agreed to promote collaboration in developing railway industry of both countries. As a consequence of this JDI, the German-Thai Railway Association – GTRA has been founded in 2021 as a legal body for driving activities to fulfil the objectives of the JDI.

Under the blessed support by both Thai and German government, GTRA has continuously built up a strong network consisting of a wide spectrum of people involving with the railway industry from both countries, e.g. professionals, industry companies, academia, research institutes, authorities, operators and students. We are vigorously promoting all kind of collaborations in our network, such as business development, technology and knowledge transfer, education, training, research and etc. Currently, we have four major working groups in research, operation, research & development, and workshop. There are also six focus groups working on specific areas of interest, i.e. standardization, H2-initative, maintenance and monitoring, logistics and operation management, cargo train management, trackwork and structure, and light rail. The information about GTRA such as past and upcoming activities including the membership application can be found in www.gtra.in.th.

For this first appearance of the GTRA newsletter, I would like to invite all readers to become an official GTRA’s member. Being a GTRA’s member will enable you to reach in our communication network. The GTRA’s community is awaiting to welcome you.

We wish that you join us very soon.