thaimelbournetransport.myfastforum.org

admin · Site Admin Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 127

My Johor: Railway nostalgia
By : FAUZIAH ISMAIL

2008/01/27

GEOGRAPHY was not my strongest subject while at school. As such, when I found out that my sister and her family was moving to Layang-Layang, the first thing I did was to look it up on the Johor map. By road, it was after Sedenak. By rail, it was nearer to Renggam than Kluang.

I cannot recall anything outstanding about this small town, with the exception of the railway station where my brother was the station master in the late 1970s.

As with all small towns where the train passed through, the station was the centre of activity.

It was never quiet at the station. There were always people there, either waiting for the mail trains or simply hanging around with the station staff. Back then, there was this stall at the station that served the best bihun soup in town.

If you’re driving to Layang-Layang, you will not miss the railway station. It is on the left as you enter the town area.
Whenever we were there, we would park at the station and cross the tracks to get to the living quarters on the other side. Crossing the track on foot was the fastest way to get to the house compared with driving a long distance on a dirt track through an oil palm plantation. It was illegal to cross the tracks on foot but I guess we got away with it because we were related to the station master.

There are some 20 railway stations in Johor. The express trains only stop at the main stations such as Johor Baru, Senai, Kluang and Segamat, while the mail trains serviced the smaller towns.

At these stations, the station master used the old method of communications with the train driver. Red and green flags and tokens, which looked like huge padlocks, were the tools they used to communicate.

Back then, the tokens changed hands between the station master and the driver while the train, especially in the case of the express trains, was in motion.

A station staff would be holding a token up, and the driver would take it from him as the train entered the station. While at the other end of the station, the station master would be waiting for the driver to throw a different token over to him.

Besides Layang-Layang, some of the smaller towns which also have railway stations are Kulai, Sedenak, Mengkibol, Chamek, Paloh, Bekok, Labis, Tenang, Genuang, Buloh Kasap and Batu Enam.

I find it a bit peculiar that Muar has never been on the Malaysian Railway route. After all, it is the only town in the country that had a railway network that was named after it — the Muar State Railways (MSR) — even though it has never been a state capital and is not the largest town in the state.

Reports on the Internet said the MSR started operating just four years after the first railway line in the country, from Taiping to Port Weld, was inaugurated in 1885.

Its headquarters was situated where the Maharani bus and taxi terminal is now.

The railway operated from 1889 to 1925, linking Jalan Sulaiman, in Bandar Maharani, and Sungai Pulai for a distance of 22.5 km.

Being the local light railway, MSR was not connected to the national railway network. But, there were plans to extend the line to Batu Pahat in 1916.

However, a Wikipedia report said the project failed to take off because of financial and geographical constraints.

The railway was profitable and facilitated the movement of people and goods, besides promoting economic development through the opening of new coconut plantations.

However, it declined in importance with the opening of Jalan Abdul Rahman, that linked Bandar Maharani and Parit Jawa, in 1918.

In addition, maintenance of the dilapidated infrastructure was very limited. The track was neglected to the extent that poor drainage damaged the track's substructure.

Moreover, the absence of ballast stone in the track construction led to its rapid deterioration, which resulted in several derailments. A huge amount of money was clearly required to rehabilitate the railway.

Saddled with financial constraints and declining popularity, the MSR’s glorious 36-year career finally came to an end in 1925.

All trace of the railway track has disappeared as it has been replaced by Jalan Temenggung Ahmad.

The MSR locomotive, which is on display at Taman Tanjung Emas, Muar, is all that remains to show that the railway existed at all.

It is believed that the MSR locomotive is the oldest one in the country, as the steam locomotive on display at the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur is a later model.