Kantang Train Station

Kantang Train Station opened on 1 April 1913 as “Trang Station,” serving what was then the province’s administrative seat. When Trang’s provincial capital later moved to the site of today’s Trang town, that new station took the name “Trang Station” and this original building became Kantang Station instead — a naming swap that confuses people looking at old maps. It now sits as the terminus of the Thung Song Junction-Kantang branch line, in Trang province’s Kantang district.

The wooden station building has never been renovated, and its yellow-and-brown structure is listed as a historic building by the Fine Arts Department — one of the oldest surviving wooden stations on Thailand’s rail network. In the early 20th century it was the transport and trade hub linking Trang, Phang Nga, Krabi, Phuket, and Satun to Bangkok, and by extension to international shipping routes through the Andaman coast. Original ticket counters, period photographs, and old bilingual signage remain inside, and the platform still sees the occasional train pass through — a working station rather than a museum piece, even if most visitors come for the building rather than to travel anywhere.

Insider Tip: Come for the building and the atmosphere, not to actually catch a train — with only about one departure a day each way, the schedule rarely lines up with a typical day trip. If you do want to ride it, check the current timetable first rather than assuming times from an old guidebook.

Watch out: There’s no English signage explaining the station’s history on site, so the Trang Station/Kantang Station name-swap story is easy to miss without knowing it beforehand.

Morning or late afternoon light suits photographing the wood-toned platform best, and the station is a short taxi or car ride from Trang town, easy to fold into a visit to Kantang’s old town. Nearby, the Phraya Ratsadanupradit Mahison Phakdi Museum and the first rubber tree in Thailand — both tied to the same governor who developed Kantang as a trade port — round out a short loop around the district’s early-20th-century history.