Which came first, the market or the train?

>> ^possom:

Which came first, the market or the train?


My wife (Thai) says that the train was there first, with the original line going in perhaps in 1905 (not 100% sure), and the market being started in 1984 according to a quick google search in Thai.

The original center of the market was in vacant area next to the train line. However, the rental prices for a market stall in that original area were set high enough that it was hard for people to make a profit. Apparently someone with the state railway service decided to rent out space adjacent to (read: *on*) the tracks at a much lower rate than the privately-owned market area. The majority of stall vendors moved onto the railway line in spite of the inconvenience of trains going through, and the "gimmick" of the train interruptions increased business from tourists both Thai and foreign.

The state railway owns all of the land that train lines run on in Thailand, and I guess that leasing out that land is very common. In the province that I live in, the land surrounding the tracks outside of town is leased out as farmland, and some of the length that runs through town has been leased out by builders that put up rows of shop-houses that are then rented out. The back walls of the shop-houses are probably 1-2 meters or so away from the tracks, so not quite as close as the market stalls you see in the video but still plenty crammed in.

So anyway, I guess that the land with railway lines is frequently utilized by 3rd parties here in Thailand, but the Maeklong market is the only place where it is encroached on in this way to be used as market space. My guess is that there are probably rules that prevent other areas from doing likewise, but that the Maeklong market got grandfathered in due to its status as a tourist attraction.

Moving this video to the submitter's's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.