Jurong Line: Digging Up A Bit of My Childhood

By Daphne, 22 Feb 2011.

It’s 5pm in the evening and I’m standing by the window watching the sky turn an incandescent red. It’s my favourite time of the day to simply soak in the beautiful sights of the sun as it sets over the horizon.

From a distance, I hear a whirr that gets louder and louder as it approaches – it is the cargo train that passes by behind my house twice a day, every day. There is something most therapeutic about watching the train as it whizzes by, just like on any other day.

This was about 20 years ago.

Section of Railway track the author is referring to | Photo credit: Reclaimland.sg

Sometime in the 1990s, the actual date of which I’m not very clear of, the trains stopped running. The train tracks were left abandoned, unused, forgotten by most people, save for the ones who have once seen and heard those trains chugging down the tracks. And now, in 2011, trees have grown directly on the train tracks, up to 3 metres high, obscuring most parts of the metal rails that still line the grassland. These train tracks, lie there, forever only part of a memory; my memory. Read more

Jurong Line: A Photo Guide

By Daphne, 22 Feb 2011.

Want to walk the Jurong Line, the abandoned railway that is part of the KTM Malayan Railway Network and not quite sure how to? Here’s a photo guide that will show you how:
View KTM Malayan Railway Lines in Singapore in a larger map

From Penjuru Road to the Tunnel, along the Teban Gardens Estate

Entering the path from Penjuru Road, you will likely to be greeted by a dirt path. The dirt path that you see here is caused by some machinery that has already started digging up the tracks around this area. A stream, or perhaps you might refer to it as a drain, runs along the side of this path. On the opposite side of this stream lie some kampung (villages). Read more

Jurong Line: Kampung Life Along The Tracks

By Daphne, 22 Feb 2011.

Over the years, several enclaves developed by the side of the Jurong Line, part of the KTM Malayan Railway Network. These enclaves, termed as kampung (“village” in the Malay language) for the way it resembles – rural, simple, just like a village would look -, consist of small plantations, temples and sometimes even makeshift houses.

It seems, however, as if no one actually live in these kampung, but are instead “owned” and maintained by the residents who live in the neighbouring blocks.

In perpetually developing Singapore, it is inevitable that old things and places will give way to the new. Yet, I’m fairly certain that these kampung were very likely only “built” after the train tracks were abandoned, meaning that they are each less than 20 years old. In light of the fact that most kampung in Singapore were eradicated some 40 odd years ago, these little bits of village life almost appear like an anachronism, inconsistent with today’s life in Singapore. Read more