During the booking process, I bought the ticket departing from the original Kuala Lumpur station instead of KL Sentral by mistake. It's no big deal though as they are less than 1 km away from each other.

A short Grab ride the next morning brought me to the station. Completed in 1910, it was the city's major railway station until 2001.



Opposite it is KTM's equally impressive headquarters, completed in 1917.



Besides the commuter trains, the ETS trains also make a short stop here.



The platforms



With Southeast Asia's tallest building Merdeka 118 in the background



I opted for business class seat again as I thought that it was pretty good value. With the 50% premium over standard seats, I could get a nicer seat with meals and in-train entertainment thrown in.



The entertainment unit which wasn't working in my previous ETS train was surprisingly smooth. I could watch YouTube videos on it for most of the journey.



After the train passed Sungei Buloh, the crew began to serve the first meal.

Sandwich for breakfast



Content of snack box - peanuts, orange juice and earpiece



There were 13 stops en-route between KL Sentral and Padang Besar



The second meal was served just before Parit Buntar. The KTM catering delivered once again.



I thought that there was some cost rationalisation for the food quantity compared to my last journey in 2022. Despite that, KTM ETS business class was still very good value in my opinion.

ETS EP9274 rolled into Padang Besar station right on time. It also meant that I had almost 3 hours of wait before the next train to Bangkok.

Our KTM journey came to an end



Distance travelled so far: ~ 947km

Padang Besar station was heaving with both departing and arriving passengers.



There are transport operators providing transfers to Hat Yai for passengers (30 MYR) as well as SIM card sellers.



The ticket counters for both KTM and State Railway of Thailand (SRT) operate side by side at Padang Besar. The SRT shuttle between Padang Besar and Hat Yai costs only 50 THB or 8 MYR.



KTM departures - those connecting from SRT trains should leave a healthy buffer



The link bridge to the Padang Besar ICQS is now open.



Padang Besar's Malaysian checkpoint in a distance



It's Thailand beyond the blue signs.



SRT 949, the afternoon shuttle from Hat Yai, arrived at Padang Besar at around 3.45pm



The passengers disembarking before going through Thai and Malaysian immigration checks



The immigration process took so long that the return shuttle SRT 950 would be delayed for one hour, departing at 5.45pm instead of 4.45pm.

The resident cat eyeing potential target; thankfully no crime took place



It also had an impact on my train which was the last one towards Thailand for the day.

Long queue



The Malaysian immigration officer stamped me out after verifying that I used the e-gate to enter Malaysia through Johor Bahru the day before. He also wrote the information on my passport.

Handwritten info that I used e-gate to enter Malaysia



The Thai immigration officer was much faster and I didn't even need to scan my fingerprints.

I ended up among the last few passengers to board the train. I would be in one of the two sleeper carriages that would go all the way from Padang Besar to Bangkok.



In the previous trip, my journeys on Thai trains were all in the newer CNR carriages. This time round, I would be on the older carriage, similar to the one which I first travelled between Bangkok and Butterworth back in 2010.

I've booked both of my Thai train tickets on State Railway of Thailand's Dticket app. It's very easy to use and accepts my VISA card as payment.



Despite the slow immigration clearance, my train SRT 46 departed only 12 minutes late out of Padang Besar.

Most passengers in my carriage seemed to be Malaysian families heading to Bangkok for vacation with a few Thais returning from vacation in Malaysia. The ticket check took place after the train was on the move and the SRT staff checking the tickets made sure to record where we would be getting off.

Trainee station master controlling train traffic at Khlong Ngae station



At Hat Yai Junction, we had a longer stop as the 3rd class carriages were separated from our sleeper coaches that in turn would be attached to SRT Special Express 38 which had arrived earlier from Sungai Kolok. SRT 38 and SRT 46 would make the trip to Bangkok together. During this period, many food vendors came up the carriages to sell food and snacks to the travelers.

Soon after the train left Hat Yai, the cafe staff also came around and took order for dinner and next day's breakfast.

I splurged 190THB (~5.5 USD) on one of the fried rice sets. While the orders took a while to be fulfilled, it turned out to be fairly decent and very filling.

Not pictured were vegetable soup and orange juice



After dinner, the train attendant took less than two minutes to turn the seats into bed mode and I soon fall asleep to the train's rocking motion.
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