According to the Department of Civil Aviation documentation, "Runway 01L/19R surface is grooved; Runway 01R/19L surface is not grooved". Further, "concrete drainage channels are located in the runway strips, parallel to and at 120 m offset from the runway centrelines." Five of the seven modes of operation at BKK call for arrivals on 19R.

A few weeks ago my flight landed in heavy rain on 19R, although maybe just a few knots wind (I can't recall the exact figure but I would have remembered it if it were excessive). ATC, Bangkok Tower (interestingly all female controllers after hand-off from Vietnam) asked the pilot about stopping conditions. Our pilot did express some concern to ATC on approach re: the weather at the field and if he should continue his approach. I guess he saw storm cells on his displays, but was reassured that conditions were acceptable. There were six ~ seven arrivals in our queue and none seemed to be expressing any concerns.

One of the reasons the BTS (Skytrain) and MRT (Subway) do not operate 24 hours per day is so that the entire system can be checked each day. AFAIK every inch of track is examined every day. I ride both systems up to eight times per day and have not noticed any irregularities mentioned in this thread. There was a single incident involving the MRT where a loaded train collided with an empty train and ~ 150 people were injured. This incident exposed some problem areas (moving a stalled train) that have been addressed.

Generally I would caution people against reading too much into reports in the English language press here, and/or accepting the reporting and editing as factual and accurate. This has more to do with language and culture, and generally incompetent newspaper management, than it does with censorship, libel or editorial policy.