If you’ve been following this or Jerome’s blog, you’d know that Jerome has been blogging about the railway line connecting Singapore and Malaysia in commemoration of the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station that is set to move its operations to Woodlands next year. In his final post of the series, Jerome blogs about the actual train journey from Singapore to Malaysia where he and a group of friends make a trip up to Gemas in Johor.

There’s a lot to see along the Singapore-Malaysian railway line:

There was a lot to take in along the way as well: once again, scenes that will be lost once the corridor through which the railway runs is redeveloped. Clearing the relatively built up areas as the train first passed the Bukit Merah and Delta areas, the bit of greenery around the Portsdown area before coming to Queenstown, Tanglin Halt and the Buona Vista areas, we soon found ourselves amidst the lush greenery of the Ulu Pandan area. The train pulled to a stop at Bukit Timah Station, not so much to pick passengers up but to make way for not one but two south bound trains, letting one pass before moving up the nearby railway bridge only to head back down to allow the second to pass. We were able to observe the handing over of the key token – an archaic safety practice where authority to proceed from the station would be “handed-over” by the station master to the train, before continuing on our journey north.

In a time of planes, subways and air-conditioned buses, taking a choo-choo train might seem a luxury for the idle. However, as you can see from Jerome’s post, the views are unique and also becoming increasingly rarer so it’s something to catch before it becomes no more! Incidentally, a daytime train journey to Kuala Lumpur is about 6 hours long – just an hour longer than by taking the bus.