Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn presided over the launch ceremony, boarding the first train from the Thai border town of Nong Khai which travels along 3.5 kilometres (2.1 miles) of track to Thanaleng in Laos.
From Thanaleng it is still another nine kilometres to the Laotian capital Vientiane but both sides hailed the inauguration as a key step towards opening up a regional route ferrying goods and passengers.
'The inauguration of this train link today (Thursday) will enhance transportation with our neighbouring country,' Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in the opening speech.
The track over the Friendship Bridge took 20 months to complete and was funded by Thailand at a cost of about 197 million baht (S$8.4 million).
Two passenger trains will run the 30-minute return trip each day.
Laos foreign affairs spokesman Khenthong Nuanthasing said the track was the first rail link connecting landlocked Laos with the outside world.
'The railway is very important for the country,' he said a day ahead of the ceremony. 'As a way out of the country in the past there were only trucks, which are very expensive for exports. The cost of transportation will be less.' The link is part of a plan conceived in the 1960s to connect Asia with a continuous railway stretching west to Turkey and Russia and east to Vietnam and South Korea.
Decades of conflict and poverty stalled the plan but the breakup of the Soviet Union and the opening up of China have revived the dream, and in November 2006, 18 Asian nations agreed to integrate the continent by rail.
The UN-backed Trans-Asian Railway route now has nearly 74,700 kilometres of functioning track serving 29 countries, and United Nations officials have said they hope to complete the railway in 10 to 15 years. -- AFP
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