The Last Train Out For Malaysia

In the past week, Malaysia celebrated its independence. Our guest writer S. Pearl pays tribute to one of its lasting impacts in Singapore, the iconic and much beloved railway, operated by KTM.

 

 When the last trains pulled out of Singapore on June 30, 2011, it was the end of an era. The historic moment brought a crescendo of emotions to a wide swathe of society on both sides of the Straits of Johor. Although bilateral ties had been tense in the lead up to the historic land swop between Singapore and Malaysia, the last days of our shared history in 108 years of rail operation brought two people together again like it hadn’t done for a long time. Railway fans, families, neophytes, history buffs and journalists queued once more for tickets on the iron roosters to head north one last time. The staff of Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd., fondly known as KTM, lamented that they hadn’t been so busy for so long and in typical hospitality, welcomed one and all in their photography trips, and shared endless trivia as well as stories gleaned over the decades of babies born on the trains, proposals made and accepted, birthdays celebrated, anniversaries honoured,  and farewells organised.

 

TANJONG PAGAR RAILWAY STATION

And what a century it has been. Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, the grand old lady which opened in 1932 to replace the Tank Road station, featured four men of elegant physique, representing Agriculture, Commerce, Transport and Industry to reflect the economy of the Federated Malay States under British rule. It was meant to support the British maritime empire, linking the harbour at Keppel Road to the heart of Singapore, including the first Ford Motor Works factory in Southeast Asia at Upper Bukit Timah, supplying the bases in the north on the way to the Malayan peninsula, passing the British Military Hospital on Alexandra Road, the empire’s most sophisticated hospital for the Far East Command. 

The Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, emblazoned with the acronym FMSR (Federated Malay States Railway), was part of a wide network and its southernmost station in a dream to link the colonies by rail. It featured a telegraph office and its platform, measuring 1,200 feet long, was designed to accommodate mail trains, lubricating the efficient running of the colonies.

As the years rolled by, and technology brought forth cheaper means of transport, the character of the railway also evolved. The railway hotel, once as prestigious as the Raffles Hotel, closed. The Bukit Timah Railways Station stopped picking up and dropping off passengers, remaining only where trains made way for others on the one-track line. In recent memory, the rail service was mostly used by Malaysians living in Johor to commute to work in the heart of the city. Many spoke fondly of holding on to their pre-paid shuttle passes, which allowed them unlimited rides. Long past were the days families piled on for a holiday on the northbound train, as the Causeway and then the North-South Highway became preferred transport links. Passenger traffic slipped slowly over the years, and the number of staff also dwindled.

In 1998, another quirk came to life when Singapore moved the immigration and customs checkpoints from the station to Woodlands and failed to get Malaysia to agree. This led to the conundrum of passengers who until the last day in 2011, had their papers stamped at the station to “arrive” in Malaysia before “departing”  Singapore at the Woodlands checkpoint.

On its way, the trains would pass by the many icons of Singapore’s history – the early public housing blocks, the cottages that housed British personnel, the former British Military Hospital for the British Far East Command, now known as Alexandra Hospital. The former Ford Motor Works factory, built in 1941, was to write itself into the history books as the place where the British army surrendered Malaya to the Japanese.

 

THE LAST STATION MASTER

But as the years passed, the ‘British-ness’ of it all faded into the annals of time and the Malaysian character came to the fore. The men and women in KTM blue brought the laidback way of life back home into the very heart of Singapore. Even calling from station to station, they used Malaysian telephone lines. Atan Ahmad (below), whose destiny it was to be the last station master of Bukit Timah Railway Station, was the epitome of this warmth, balancing his duties to keep trains and people safe, while entertaining and educating many young railway fans who would visit him in his quiet outpost.

One old friend was a retired Singapore Post postman, who limped into his cottage several times a week to seek company. “Who do I talk to now when the trains stop running and the station goes black?” he asked me sadly, shaking his head. In all my visits to the station, he was always cut a lonely melancholic figure whom Time left behind. He has sought refuge here for decades on his postal rounds, enjoying the company of KTM staff and passing passengers in the days when trains still stopped there to pick up passengers. On the last day, I saw him shed bitter tears and hugging Atan like a brother in arms.

One young friend, Nicholas, recounted how they ordered pizza one quiet night and for the life of them couldn’t convince the delivery service that the address existed, so remote was this little cottage in the heart of busy Singapore. When the GPS service told the delivery man it was the Bukit Timah Railway Station, he said, “But there is no MRT there! You are playing a trick on me.” He arrived perplexed to see railway tracks of a different order and the Malaysian flag fluttering in the wind. Sadly, many young Singaporeans are not even aware there was a railway running through Singapore as recently as June 2011. Shockingly, there are some who are perplexed we were once conjoined as one country.

I noticed with pride that the Malaysian flag was posted at every outpost along the line – Bukit Gombak, Choa Chu Kang, Stagmont Ring Road, Sungei Kadut and Kranji – and almost always, the national flower of Malaysia, the hibiscus, was cultivated outside these cottages in homage to their motherland. These were the details that moved me. The men of KTM who manned these safety points had many lonely hours to spare between trains, and tended to little plots of gardens that prettified each outpost.

 

THE SULTAN’S FREE RIDE HOME
On the last train out, driven by Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor, KTM staff past and present came to Singapore to ride the steel dragon home one more time. “All aboard,’’ said one of the Sultan’s men, mistaking me for a Malaysian seeking a lift home. “Free ride home, we’re taking you all home,” he said. And what a send-off it was, as thousands congregated at the Tanjong Pagar and Bukit Timah stations, and all along the way from Keppel Road to Rifle Range Road to Choa Chu Kang Road to Kranji, leaning over overhead bridges, waving out of HDB flats, screaming at all the traffic lights at the crossings.

It was a heady farewell. On the train, blue uniforms leaned out of every open door of each carriage as they waved and shouted goodbye, tears on many faces. As we neared the border, one man turned to me and said, “After 17 years, this will be my last time here. I live in a small town up north and have no reason or money to come down this far.” He showed me his passport, a stamp showing that his long-term permit to come in and out freely as KTM staff now only permitted him stay until midnight. “I feel lost,’’ he said, his eyes brimming now. “This is my home, too.”

I am of the generation who rode the trains up north on a blue passport, in the days when we were issued an international passport and a separate blue one just for Malaysia. It was special. My mother and aunts were of the generation who lived under Japanese occupation and fled across the Straits of Johor to hide in little rural towns. My first trip out of Singapore was to Butterworth on a night mail train, on the cheapest ticket we could afford. My first mountain climbed was Gunung Ledang in Johor, reached from Gemas station. KTM is a trusted brand from childhood days. On the last train into Singapore, I recorded the sounds of the rails all the way from Woodlands to Tanjong Pagar. It’s the heart beat of a different era.

What began as a grand British adventure ended as a gentle parting of ways, Malaysian style. For 108 years, sovereign Singapore territory housed one of the most unique railway lands in the world, a Malaysian spine down the little island if you will. But when all is said and done, it may as well have been that Malaysia, or at least KTM, played gracious host to Singapore.

KTM, terima kasih for the memories. May you live long and prosper!