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Next stop: Jitterbug Central!

Hua Lamphong swaps timetables for a new tempo as the historic station becomes a ballroom for one night only

Kaweewat Siwanartwong
Written by
Kaweewat Siwanartwong
Staff writer, Time Out Thailand
Jelly Roll Jazz Club
Photograph: Jelly Roll Jazz Club
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There are few better places to dance than where nobody expects you to. This August, Bangkok’s century-old Hua Lamphong Railway Station will once again shed its bureaucratic quiet and become a makeshift ballroom, echoing not with train whistles or hurried footsteps, but with the bright, full sound of jazz. The Jelly Roll Jazz Club is back for one more year with Step into Swing Vol.2, and for one evening only, history will loosen its collar and tap its foot.

It’s something messier – an experiment in joy, improvised between pillars and ticket booths, right where the city once departed. Built in 1916, Hua Lamphong is the place usually admired at a distance, spoken about in the past tense. But swing, with its unapologetic enthusiasm and refusal to stay still, invites you to inhabit the space fully – to twirl across polished tiles, to sweat a little under the stained-glass dome.

The event is part of an ongoing push by the State Railway of Thailand to reimagine what Hua Lamphong could be, now that most long-haul services have moved elsewhere. It’s a cultural retrofit, powered not by planning committees but by dance shoes and brass instruments. This year’s gathering isn’t just for the fringe elite of swing dancers; anyone with a body and a vague sense of rhythm is welcome. A free workshop opens the event, designed for absolute beginners, or anyone feeling nostalgic for a version of themselves that used to take more risks.

Jelly Roll Jazz Club
Photograph: Jelly Roll Jazz Club
Jelly Roll Jazz Club
Photograph: Jelly Roll Jazz Club

These temporary dance floors – set up in old stations, malls, beneath expressways – offer a glimpse of a gentler city, one where movement isn’t always about getting somewhere. They pose questions, too: who gets to use the space, and for what? How much joy can a city absorb before someone calls it frivolous?

Step into Swing Vol.2 unfolds for one evening only on August 17, from 4pm-7pm, inside the echoing halls of Hua Lamphong Railway Station. Entry is free with registration now open at the link here. Registered dancers also receive B100 off any future class at the Jelly Roll Jazz Club studio – just in case.

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