30 June 2011

It has been 10 years since the last train pulled out of Tanjong Pagar Railway Station on the night of 30 June 2011, ending a 108-year era of rail in Singapore.

Thereafter, the southern terminus of the Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) West Coast Railway Line was moved from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands, at the northern edge of Singapore Island. KTM trains no longer ran across the width of the city-state.

Ten years on, most of the railway tracks in Singapore are gone, and the former KTM land is now the Rail Corridor. To commemorate 10 years since 30 June 2011, I unearthed some photos I took with a cheap camera on that historic night.

The beautiful exterior of Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.

The station staff were celebrities that night. This guy posed for photographs like a star.

What was left of the canteen.

I wonder what became of this man.

Waiting for the last train out. I had a good view because I was standing on a chair I had taken from the canteen. That chair was my best friend that night. I later decided to put this photo in my book, Jalan Singapura.

It was like a carnival. Everyone was excited and in great spirits. We all knew we were part of a historic moment.

After the last train left at around 11pm, the crowd spilled onto the tracks.

We were free to walk all around the place, including the immigration and customs areas. The staff did not care, because their job here in Tanjong Pagar was done.

I love this sign - the font, the colours, the Malay name.

People were in no hurry to head home that night.

The interior of the station building, with its murals. I’m glad this building is conserved.

The former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station will be integrated with the future Cantonment MRT Station of the Circle Line Stage 6, which will open in 2026. I can’t wait to be back inside the historic building to relieve the magical night of 30 June 2011.

Changing fortunes in transport

One challenge I faced when I was working on my book Jalan Singapura was covering Singapore’s recent transport history - the period from 2011 to the time of writing, which was 2019 (final edits to the manuscript were made in April). The local transport scene was evolving at lightning speed. Facts and statistics had to be updated every few weeks.

Good examples were electric scooters (e-scooters) and electric bicycles (e-bikes). As I was finalising my manuscript, the former had taken over the island’s pavements and walkways. Its low prices, ease of riding, and lack of regulatory framework to oversee its use, saw population numbers surging to at least 40,000. I made sure to draw parallels between its careless introduction and that of other modes of transport throughout Singapore’s modern history.

Credit: TODAY.

Within a few months after publication, the e-scooter population had further grown to 100,000. Then, on 5 November that year, after a spate of accidents, mostly between e-scooters and pedestrians, the Transport Ministry abruptly banned e-scooters and other personal mobility devices (PMDs) from footpaths.

In a flash, the Era of E-scooters had ended as soon as it had begun.

Fast forward 19 months, and the Republic’s registered e-scooter population had plunged to just 6,671 as of end-May 2021 - a precipitous decline of 93 per cent.

PMDs are still allowed on cycling paths and park connector networks, but the infrastructure is still too inadequate to encourage widespread use.

Instead, many have switched to bicycles - or e-bikes. Boosting their numbers is increased demand from food delivery riders, as food delivery services have grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Credit: The New Paper.

E-bikes had to be registered from 2018. At the time, there were around 13,000 of them; last May, there were 15,800; this had doubled to 31,660 by the end of this May.

Just as growth in the e-scooter fleet in previous years had led to a rise in e-scooter accidents, the same is happening to the e-bike fleet.

In 2019, there were 24 accidents and no fatalities involving the two-wheelers; the following year, there were 75 accidents and three deaths. Still nothing compared to motor vehicular casualties, but worth keeping an eye on.

From 30 June, it became mandatory for e-scooter and e-bike riders to pass an online theory test on rules and safe riding practices.

This requirement is too lax though. At least a practical test is needed. Even then, just as many motorists throw out what they’ve learned in driving school the moment they get their licence, the same will happen to e-scooter and e-bike riders too.

Ultimately, like motorists, e-scooters and e-bikes need more infrastructure in the form of Channels of Movement - preferably dedicated paths - coupled with a stricter regulatory framework with strong enforcement to ensure law-breakers suffer deterrent punishments. This was an argument I had put forth in Jalan Singapura, and two years on, it hasn’t changed.

When a new mode of transport is introduced, the infrastructure to give it the space it needs, and the regulatory framework to keep its users on the straight and narrow, must be in place first. Otherwise - to use a transport analogy - it’s putting the cart before the horse.

In the transport scene, fortunes can rise and fall in a flash, but some principles are timeless.

Retracing the Jurong Railway Line

In my book, Jalan Singapura, I briefly mention Singapore’s Jurong Railway Line, which was laid down in the 1960s to facilitate the transfer of raw materials and goods between fledgling Jurong Industrial Estate and Malaysia. In all, 19 km of track connected Jurong to the main Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) railway tracks between Tanjong Pagar and Woodlands.

Here’s a 1975 map of the line, highlighted in green. The track highlighted in red is the main KTM line.

Photos of a train on the line in 1965.

Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

The Jurong Railway Line did not last long; it closed in the 1990s. Thereafter, the authorities removed most of the tracks as part of the usual process of urban redevelopment. I wrote:

Scattered remnants remain - tunnels, a truss bridge, some rusting tracks - tucked away in the footnotes of Singapore’s urban history.

My interest is searching for the footnotes of history.

And so I spent one afternoon searching for the remains of the Jurong Railway Line - its easternmost section, in the Clementi Forest, an 85-hectare green lung that is part of the Rail Corridor ecosystem. I wanted to see how much of the track still existed in the forest, and whether it was possible to explore it.

I travelled to Bus Stop 12089, opposite Maju Camp, along the southbound portion of Clementi Road (see Point A in the map below).

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

Behind the bus stop was a disused railway tunnel, with a stretch of track still laid on the ground.

Could this 1965 photo of the Jurong Railway Line be of this tunnel? Possible...

Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

The track ran west into Maju Forest, and east into Clementi Forest, so I headed in the direction of the latter.

Immediately, I realised how much the surrounding forest had reclaimed the site after three decades of abandonment.

Tall trees and palms encroached right up to and even on the track, soaring up to four storeys above me. The sun was out, yet its rays did not fully reach the tracks, because the canopy above was dense.

I managed to get a clear shot of the track.

It also became apparent to me that the track had been laid down in a cutting carved out of the terrain. There were rusted metal and crumbling wooden beams holding back the hilly terrain on both sides - in some areas, it looked as if they were on the verge of giving up. I hope no one will be around when the inevitable landslide occurs.

There were plenty of fallen branches lying across the track, but traversing them was not difficult.

Since the track was on the lowest point of the terrain, flooding was a problem. Stagnant water, thick with mud and decades of decaying plant matter, lay on both sides of the track.

The cutting in which the track was laid must have been on a gentle decline, because soon, the surrounding soil became muddier, and wetter - until I was wading in swamp-like conditions (see Point B below).

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

Fortunately, hikers had marked out an alternate path on higher ground to the right of the track, so I clambered up and continued on my way.

After a short distance, the track completely disappeared under deep, coffee-like water. I had no idea as to its depth, or whether anything lived in it. All was still and the air thick with stifling humidity. Nature had triumphed over human construction.

The muddy path on higher ground continued in an east-north-east direction for a good distance, and then I saw the track emerge again from the flood! (See Point C below.)

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

It was around here that I could clamber down from the path on higher ground, to the level where the track was. The soft mud gradually gave way to more solid, drier ground again.

Some of the wooden sleepers are still around - I’m not sure whether they’d survive another three decades, though.

Eventually, as I was nearing the Rail Corridor, the track abruptly ended (see Point D below).

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

This was the end of the track.

In the background of the photo above, there was a wall of bush as tall as me; after I charged through the bush, I emerged in a glade bathed in brilliant sunshine. There were immense trees all around me, and no further traces of railway track.

The glade was next to the Rail Corridor. The photo below was facing south. The former Bukit Timah Railway Station was around 600 metres to the north.

In all, about 600 metres of railway track still lie inside the Clementi Forest, of which close to 400 metres is permanently flooded. As of now, it is still possible to cover the entire length on foot.

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

As long as the forest survives, this footnote of Singapore urban and transport history will likewise live on.