The new rates will be effective from Wednesday.

SRT governor Chitsanti Dhanasobhon said the company has recorded losses since oil prices started climbing in 2004. Just this year it has racked up Bt900 million in losses derived from fuel costs, he said. He noted that other public transportation modes, including busses and provincial busses, have raised their ticket prices twice.

SRT consumes 1.2 billion litres of fuel oil a year.

Out of the total of 254 train trips per day, 184 are for passengers and 70 for freight.

"The newly increased fares will apply for commercial train trips only," Chitsanti said.

Bourse to support digital arts

The Market for Alternative Investment has forged a collaboration with three organisations to promote the animation and multimedia, or "digital-content", business, to help the country become the "Hollywood of Asia" by 2009.

MAI president Chanitr Charnchainarong said on Thursday that the MAI had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Software Industry Promotion Agency, the Thailand Animation and Computer Graphics Association and the Bangkok ACM SIGGRAPH Association.

The agreement concerns the development of human resources in the digital-content industry, distribution, exchange of information pertinent to the industry's development and financial support, co-production funding or budgeting for marketing.

Power use peaks during heat wave

Temperatures have soared to near 40 degrees Celsius, leading to a surge in power demand and consumption that peaked this week.

The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand reported on Thursday that power demand jumped to 21,064 megawatts at 1.30pm that day, beating its previous record peak level of 20,744.8MW on March 28.