The Green Corridor: Wildlife, Alive and Dead, along the Tracks

By Daphne, 25 Apr 2011.

Warning: The following post includes gruesome photos of dead animals, which may cause discomfort to some readers.

Long tail macaques. Monitor Lizards. The rare pangolin. The common changeable lizard. Various species of snakes.

Long tail macaques are a common sight at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, of which the railway tracks pass near to the entrance of.

These are but a few animals that can be found along the section of the KTM railway tracks that run from the Bukit Timah Railway Station up till the road next to the soon-to-be-converted-into-a-condomium Ten Mile Junction.

Unfortunately, some of these animals may have fallen victim to “road-kill”, or rather “track-kill” by passing trains. Read more

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

All Aboard: Riding the Train from Tanjong Pagar Rail Station to Johor Bahru

By Jeffrey and Flora, 18 Apr 2011.

Not only are they a dying form of transportation, trains and railway stations are also time machines, taking passengers back to a simpler, slower time. As I set foot inside Tanjong Pagar Rail Station a few days ago, I forgot about the glass and steel buildings in the CBD, the crowded malls and congested streets of Singapore. Train service out of this station will end on July 1, 2011, so I decided to take a train ride to Johor Bahru before it would be too late.

After July 1, the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) will no longer run trains out of Tanjong Pagar Rail Station to Malaysia. Passengers seeking to ride the rails from Singapore to Johor Bahru and beyond will have to begin their journey at Woodlands Train Checkpoint (WTCP). Tanjong Pagar Rail Station, as well as Bukit Timah Rail Station, have been gazetted and will be conserved. The land where the train tracks now lay seems to be fair game and will probably be developed at warp speed, as land is scarce on this little island. Read more

Jurong Line: Is this Goodbye?

By Daphne, 22 Feb 2011.

It was close to 20 years ago when the last train went down the tracks of the Jurong Line of the KTM Malayan Railway in Singapore. These tracks, which run from the Jurong Industrial park to Bukit Timah, has since been dismantled in part, but mostly left abandoned.

In May 2010, news that Tanjong Pagar Train Station, the only remaining train station part of the KTM Malayan Railway Network that still functions in Singapore, was going to move north to Woodlands broke out. The KTM Malayan Railway has for years brought people and goods from Malaysia to Singapore and vice versa. Since then, there has been speculation as to what would happen to these railway tracks – both the line that runs from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands, and the Jurong Line.

I took a walk down the Jurong Line, two Sundays ago, and to my dismay, work on removing these tracks had already started.

I had began my walk from Penjuru Road, near the Teban Gardens estate in Jurong, and was wondering why I could not spot any semblance of the tracks – I was even starting to think that I was not going down the right path. 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

A colourful journey in black and white

By Jerome Lim, 14 March 2011.

I have always been one for train rides, taking one every opportunity I get whenever I find myself with time to spare, be it from the grand stations of the great European cities, or from stations closer to home, with a particular liking for the old style railways that I sometimes stumble upon. In Singapore, the opportunity had presented itself throughout my life I guess, but somehow, I never embarked on a journey from the grand old station at Tanjong Pagar until I was well into my adulthood, making many trips in the 1990s. Trains always present themselves as a convenient means to get around from one city to another, taking one from the centre of the city right into the heart of another. So it is with the Malayan Railway as well – for another few months at least when Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB or KTM) moves the terminal station from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands. With that, we will bid goodbye to the old railway lines which has served Singapore since the turn of the last century, as well as an old railway station in the heart of the city.

As mentioned in my previous post, I took another ride recently, just for the sake of reliving my previous journeys before the chance to do so evaporates once KTM moves operations to Woodlands. It will be a shame not to have had that experience, one that involves arriving or departing from the platforms which had served as the southern terminal to the Malayan Railway for eight decades from its days as the FMSR. Once the move is made, Singapore would lose not just another historical link it has had with the Malay States in the Malayan Peninsula, but also a proper train station to take a romantic journey on a train from. What will also go are the well worn tracks that served us so well, laid over a corridor of land that probably due to the railway, has remained untouched and relatively green; as well as the many markers left behind by the railway including the railway bridges, signal posts, railway buildings and control huts, distance markers and the last remaining level crossings in Singapore. Read more

There I go again … another journey through Tanjong Pagar

By Jerome Lim, 11 March 2011.

I guess I have not had enough of it, despite probably having tens of, if not a couple of hundred journeys out of Tanjong Pagar. I did it once again, since proclaiming that that journey taken with some friends at the end of last year would possibly have been my last. Having had a mixed bag of experiences on the many journeys through the arches of the grand old station, the ones that probably I remember most of are the regular delays that one comes to expect on the far from reliable train service that KTMB operates. Part of the reason for this, some of the archaic infrastructure and practices still in use on the old railway, does perhaps lend itself to an experience that you would certainly not get on the efficient railways that criss-cross much of the European continent – one that seems out of place in the ultra modern and efficient world we have grown accustomed to in Singapore.

Stepping into the station itself would somehow take you back in time, the atmosphere being one which seems more at home in the Singapore of the 1960s and 1970s. The large airy concourse that greets the visitor is adorned with mosaic murals that speak of a style that was prevalent of a time we have left behind and depict scenes from the Malayan peninsula that would have been more common in that era. Over the years that I had have an awareness of the layout of the concourse, nothing much has changed except perhaps that the occupants of some of the spaces, and an invasion of a Tourism Malaysia hut in the middle of it. It is in one of the spaces along the concourse that some nice food can be found and to perhaps add a old world flavour to the station, you would find food vendors that would be more comfortable conversing in Bahasa Melayu, once a common language on the streets. Read more

Journeys through Tanjong Pagar: First Impressions …

By Jerome Lim, 21 Sep 2010.

I had as a child, been fascinated by the old railway station at Tanjong Pagar. The grand old station building, which has provided many of us with a passage to the north, had been one that always attracted my attention whenever I passed it in the backseat of my father’s car. The very first impression I have of the station is one that has been shaped by the food stalls that sprouted up in the open air car park in front of the station every evening, stalls that seemed to glow in the shadows cast by the grey façade of the railway station.

Singapore-Malaysia cross-border transport agreement and opportunities

By Paul Barter, May 31, 2010.

Singapore’s bicycle community has noticed that last week’s agreement on the Malayan Railways (KTM) corridor could create a wonderful bikeway opportunity. So far, this angle has had no media attention. More on this at the end but first I want to reflect on the wider issues in the agreement.

My 2006 paper on this (pdf; publisher site) discussed three main aspects and the latest announcement relates to all three (as well as several other issues, such as cross-border taxis, buses and revived plans for a cross-border mass transit system to connect with Singapore’s MRT). Read more

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