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HRH Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has introduced a rail link over the Mekong, which will connect Thailand and Laos.

The new line runs for 3.5 kilometres from the Thai border town of Nong Khai, across the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River, to the Laotian town of Vientiane.

The rail link is part of the UN-backed Trans-Asian Railway, which now has nearly 74,700km of working track serving 29 countries, and estimates for completion range from 10 to 15 years.

Both countries are describing the new rail link, which is scheduled to run two passenger trains a day, as an important step forward.

For Laos, it is the country's first ever international rail connection and one that will help considerably reduce export costs.

The ultimate aim is to "unlock" a country with no direct access to the sea, Lao Railway Authority spokesman Sompong Pholsena told the Lao News Agency.

The track over the Friendship Bridge took 20 months to complete and was funded by Thailand at a cost of about 197m baht ($5.5m; £3.8m).

The bridge is a key part of the region's transport development, extending road links from Singapore to Shanghai.

Decades of regional conflict and poverty have delayed plans to connect Asia with a continuous rail network– a plan which was conceived in the 1960s- until now.