I used to love the train journey from Hua lampong down to Butterworth in my younger days, 2nd class fan, smoking and drinking till your hearts content, then hitting the buffet car to get some really awful over priced Thai food, can't remember how many years ago the last time I went, but the trains were all aircon, so problems with smoking, Pedang Besar train station had been rebuilt, the little 4 by 4 meter restaurant had gone, he now runs the currencey exchange I believe, I think the train used to get in there at about 9am, you would see all the Pattaya guys in the restaurant ordering cans of beer to keep them going till we hit Butterworth, me I used to order their chicken Indian curry, that was damn good and about 20 baht, now the new station is overly sanitised and sells egg or tuna sandwiches that taste awful and aint worth the money, also the toilets weren't open, so you been on the train 20 hours maybe and still got 3 more hours of journey left, so you got to hold it in or use the trains toilet, have you ever tried using a squat toilet on a moving train? you really do need a friend to help you keep your balance.
One time i was stuck on a train in Hat Yai after a derailment of another train, we were their for about 10 hours, every now and again the train would move a little bit, every now again I would get off the train to have a wander about, you really had to be carefull as the toilets just empty out onto the track, there were one foot high piles of poo everywhere
