Painting by Bev Jackson
The Ghim Moh public housing estate, west from center of Singapore, has some 28 apartment blocks built in the 1970s and spruced up every decade or so. The Chinese characters for Ghim Moh declares "vibrancy-color and fertility-prosperity," but read phonetically in a Fujian dialect could mean "golden hair," this arising from a colonial era when Caucasians lived here.
Amidst these residential towers are a range of retail, commercial, and public services and amenities that reduce the need to commute downtown, giving any mall a decent run. The north face of Block 4 overlooks a former school, currently used as education ministry offices. Hugging the campus fence counter-clockwise is a dirt track, muddy from frequent rain and layered with plywood, tiles, bricks, and assorted detritus by residents to avoid the quagmire.
Passing shrubs on both sides, the track opens up to lush tropical greenery and a well-paved path running perpendicularly, the width of a single traffic lane. To the right and southeast, this path winds towards Tanjong Pagar—the "Cape of Stakes," stakes historically used by fishermen to mark turf in mangrove swamp—and the southern docks. Turning left and northwest, the path leads to Woodlands and the border with Peninsular Malaysia. This is the Rail Corridor.
Local records are scanty but show that in 1869, an Engineer in the private Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, one W. J. Du Port, proposed the first Singapore railway to serve the company's New Harbor, to a tune of 200,000 pounds. It then took 20 years before Governor Cecil Clementi Smith raised the need for rail at a Legislative Council meeting, and another ten years before Governor Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell approved a railway project. Clementi today is a public housing precinct comprising several housing estates, further west after Ghim Moh. Strangely enough, there have been two Sir Cecil Clementis in the history of Singapore and the Straits Settlements, such has been the duration of colonization.
The Singapore-Kranji Railway Line was opened in 1903, "Singapore" referring to the first town terminus at Tank Road, and "Kranji" being a northwestern area named after the velvet tamarind tree. Changes were made to the line over the years, including a 1907 extension to southwestern wharves, and a 1923 direct crossing into Malaya on the first causeway straddling the Johor Strait.
On 2 May 1932 the Keppel Road / Tanjong Pagar Railway Station opened for business. The station facade featured four gleaming white marble statues—representing Agriculture, Commerce, Transport, and Industry—designed by Florentine Angiolo Vannetti on the Asian leg of his world tour. Above the statues were the letters F M S R, for the Federated Malay States Railway, which post-WWII became the Malayan Railway Administration and thereafter the present Keretapi Tanah Melayu ("trains of Malay lands") public limited company. Besides facilities for train passengers, the station incorporated a ritzy hotel with service purported to rival that of Raffles Hotel run by the Armenian Sarkies brothers, eastwards along the coast. Lim Eng Peng's Station Hotel however lasted only 60 years due to lack of upkeep.
The Tanjong Pagar station thrived over 79 years before ceasing operations on 30 June 2011, after which the start of the Singapore-Malaysia railway line shifted up north to the border. Liberated from transportation use were 24 kilometers of northwest-southeast tracks bisecting the island. The parks board has gradually re-greened much of the corridor, while the four statues still perch aloft, awaiting their station's restoration as a heritage building.
I never saw much point in exercising. While I appreciated the general logic for exercise and the evidence to date, there was always something else more pressing or, frankly, more enjoyable to attend to. I solved Randi Zuckerberg's "dilemma"—to pick three priorities from friends, enterprise, family, fitness, and sleep—by dumping the last two and adding books, with some computer gaming on the side.
When the inevitable alerts emerged from periodic health screenings, I put them down to a genetic predisposition on my mother's side of the family. What could one do? Grudgingly though, I started multi-tasking in the gym, using any machine that allowed replying to emails and drafting documents without losing an appendage. Impatient to steal time, I dialed up the equipment settings, while also going through a few biographies and histories I had longed to read.
One December morning during a family farm stay in Taiwan, I made a heroic leap of two steps off the tour van with my backpack on and could not walk for three days after. This was a problem. On return, I consulted a senior knee specialist who happened to be a former colleague.
"You can't just rush things, you know. You've got to take it easy," was his diagnosis and prognosis. My knees were fine, thankfully, but I could not continue pushing the gym speeds. Time had struck back. I moved on to the alternatives of swimming, better for knees but single-task and not lightning-proof, and of outdoor walking though similarly vulnerable to tropical sky tantrums. I looked around for parks.
Before the rail corridor came under its management, the parks board was progressively linking up dozens of existing parks through a series of green lanes and connectors. Pedestrians and cyclists could travel and exercise over long stretches of the country without leaving park land, bypassing vehicular traffic and buildings. The new corridor makes possible more connections and is a linear park in its own right. It had served as the main rail artery for the century past while developments grew organically around it, veiled by trees and greenery. The rail corridor has always been there, and not-there if you did not yourself encounter the handful of daily train services.
"Did you know the rail corridor passes by our kid's school?" my wife remarked one day.
"What? No, really?"
"It's right next to it."
Nature enthusiasts and other hobbyists took readily to the vacated rail tracks, trekking through a new swath of green previously off-limits. Even without trains there remained safety concerns for the less rugged, recreational visitor, so over a few years, defunct rails and sleepers were removed and paved over, vegetation trimmed but not sterilized, and the corridor became accessible in installments, to all and sundry.
Between our son's school and a Caltex petrol station, a new access point with bicycle-friendly steps leads down to the rail corridor. In the course of the Covid-19 years, we would go on walking dates after the dawn school drop-off. When time was limited, we might drive ahead to a location previously reached and continue from there.
The rail corridor is at its most serene emerging from inky night, that one moment before inscrutable gloom flips over to mossy daylight, as some invisible hand dials the sky through infinitesimal shades of light. Tendrils of orange-yellow whip around towers above the treeline, while crickets and bullfrogs continue unabated. A few lamp posts with motion sensors are being installed near access points, but otherwise we keep an ear out for stealth bicycles and joggers.
As this is a shared path not exclusive to pedestrians or cyclists, a soft speed limit of ten kilometers per hour has been suggested, but just about all cyclists ignore this; half of them ignore the safety benefits of bicycle lamps as well. Not all walkers keep to single file, either, and some hog the entire lane, triggering frenzies of bicycle ringing. Other cyclists pedal leisurely by, sporting modified boomboxes and neon-strip lighting that kills any mood. The corridor has much potential as a live behavioral laboratory, for community and social norms to evolve as more people discover and use it, including students in many different uniforms, workers heading to building sites, researchers and tech workers to nearby industrial and science parks, and a handful on conference calls heading south to the financial center.
We stroll into the sun, southeast-bound, sneaking peeks at the backs of terrace houses and bungalows, humble and rustic architecture jostling eye-watering designs that can lift off and achieve orbit. Backyards accustomed to decades of blurred train windows and clattering locomotives suddenly find themselves exposed to random busybodies all hours of the day, who marvel at their homegrown bananas, jackfruit, mangoes, and rambutans defended by loyal red ants, and tut-tut at their household paraphernalia and open-air laundry on bamboo poles.
Besides paving over tracks and letting wild flora flourish, the parks board introduces beds of indigenous flowering plants, and improves drainage where it is perennially swampy and overflows in rivulets. Mosquito-borne dengue fever is real. Riding on the botanical abundance, some retirees combine their exercise with plucking wild blue pea flower petals (or butterfly pea, the Asian pigeonwing) for natural blue food coloring, to dye glutinous rice and desserts. Their genuine delight nearly tempts us into joining the harvest, in a bout of fear of missing out.
A runner sprints past us, shouting "Good morning!" at me without breaking her stride. Five seconds later, I realize she is an office colleague. "Oh! Hi!"
Another acquaintance told us his family moved out of a rented house next to the corridor, to a high-rise condominium apartment instead. They keep two small dogs that were at risk of pythons and cobras breaching their sulphur and other snake defenses, and they could not live with the perpetual strain. We too meet the burgeoning fauna, nearly stepping on expired toads, frogs, lizards, and mice by the side of the path, with much leaping out of the way followed by much relief. I am most pleased to have once spotted and avoided a gray frog the size of a fingernail, meditating in the middle of the path. But by far the most prominent, noisiest of wildlife on this trail are the feral roosters and hens breeding amok in the tall grasses and infesting the trees at mid-height. Their human neighbors must not relish the pre-dawn wake-up calls. Much better behaved are smaller waterhens and moorhens, members of the aptly-named rail family (Rallidae), foraging lo-fi in the undergrowth.
A monstrous contraption thunders by which can only be described as a hamster-cage stepper mounted on Odin's Skateboard. Later, a father cycles past on a reverse tricycle with a trough mounted in front, seating two girls in kindergarten tartan. "What on earth are these things?" I blurt out. A short distance ahead, a matronly lady is snacking on potato crisps and wheeling the tiniest yappy dog in its bespoke pink pram.
We pass Buona Vista, an adjacent housing estate. There are new direction signs along the rail corridor, and I do a double take at the one here with a glaring typo: "North Bunoa Vista Road."
"Oh ho ho," I say, flicking on my mobile phone and snapping a picture for a pedantic post on social media. A few commenters pile in to enable my snark. To be fair, many of the improvement works need to be outsourced to vendors, and it is not surprising the occasional error evades quality control.
One Saturday morning, a week or so later, two of my friends with a shared passion for crafts and stationery send me a group selfie, pointing at artists' ink markers on a table, beside two drinks. "Where is this wretched sign?" they message.
"What? What?" Flummoxed, I assume they are on a shopping expedition again. No further response. Later, I see on their online accounts they have gone to hunt down my sign, armed with the appropriate tools to correct it, and have bumped into the vendor's workers already covering up the typo and promising to fix it. I am amazed at the serendipity.
We turn our backs to the sun other days, past bigger and fancier backyards northwest, past broader tracts of jungle and more open vistas. Among the avian residents are flocks of striking white cockatoos ranging across the canopy, a few indigenous species interbreeding with cage escapees over the years. Wider spaces and better photographs in this direction attract more visitors and big crowds for recreation, exercise, and walking dogs, than for transportation to destinations. The ground is wilder and more verdant, with seasonal storms increasing the chances of branches snapping and trees falling. Unfortunately there have been tree-related injuries and a few deaths in the country over the years. Public advisories are put up along the corridor, and year-round tree pruning and inspections undertaken. Sawn-off logs and branches are left in situ, breathing life anew to fungi, ferns, termites, and the undergrowth.
We reach a large natural basin with a modest Clementi Forest to the left and high net-worth award-winning palaces to the right. In this spacious clearing, massive drainage works are continually in progress. The roads in this region are prone to flash floods, particularly during monsoons twice a year. All that water is channelled to the southwest, from palace towards forest, heading for Pandan (screwpine palm tree) Reservoir. The panorama here serves as backdrop for the most adventurous newly-weds and their paparazzi creating eco-themed hot takes for the album.
After the clearing, the path widens and branches into three additional sidings, as we arrive at a major stop. This is Bukit Timah (hill of tin) Railway Station, also a heritage station. Tin was a key commodity export for the British and hence heavy user of the Malaya-Singapore railway; tin is now sold as pewter tableware, gifts, and souvenirs by a boutique chain. Adjacent to three empty flag poles, there is a yellow replica sign "772.75," announcing the kilometer-distance to Butterworth Railway Station in Penang, the other terminus of the line. All stations on the route displayed corresponding distances to Penang in this manner.
In front of the station, a segment of rail and sleepers has been retained and repaired. Two butter yellow short-range maintenance cars ("Tanjong Pagar-Johor") rest on the tracks—more photo opportunities and a chance to educate a fresh generation of visitors on the country's transportation history. During peak visiting hours the 1932 Story café serves hot breakfasts, lunches, and drinks in the former staff quarters decorated with retro vinyl turntable, AM/FM radio and cassette deck, books, newspaper clippings, and yesteryear posters.
On different occasions we sample food options wherever we end up, from sauna-hot cafés with a smorgasbord of fillings steamed in buns, to shophouses burning artisanal toast with coconut egg jam, to McDonald's when my fish filet craving strikes. We come across the Masjid (mosque) Hang Jebat in Wessex estate generously installing public taps on its exterior wall, for passers-by to drink and use. Now and then we encounter localized traffic and construction works, where the corridor disappears and restarts further down the line. The parks board waits for the dust to settle before returning to integrate the corridor with each neighborhood.
Next to Bukit Timah Station is its namesake Truss Bridge, the first of two overhead rail bridges and a popular bottleneck on the route. The bridge offers a good view of several vehicle lanes below, and its width fits exactly one train. Which apparently explains why some cyclists refuse to dismount and push as advised, but force their way while mounted through the throng milling on the bridge. This situation was worsened at the height of the pandemic when there were distancing requirements, providing yet more fodder for the ongoing social experiment.
Below the bridge to the left is King Albert Park, an area and its streets named by influential residents in the early 20th century after Albert I of Belgium. After the bridge, we reach the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve on the right, a national green zone with multiple parklands, with new walkways being elevated to canopy height, floating atop the reserve.
More recently, on another stretch, we face a travesty of signage the likes of which have not been earlier encountered. A construction project is borrowing the corridor for its staging space, so the path is re-routed around three sides of the worksite. Notices on the external walls are put up by the Chinese builder, requesting cyclists to "Dismound and Push." Eyes boggle, then a furious flurry of photography, although for a moment I hesitate to activate my stationery commandos. As we walk by, a few cyclists ride up with no intention of "dismounding," and proceed to endanger everyone else with their acrobatic steering. Some folks are an enigma.
Our walks along the rail corridor have opened unexpected windows—and a door. I started walking to delay the day I would keel over from the excesses of debauched living and capricious age. The wife and I walked to suspend Covid, to ward it off, to seal it away with the green, and in such moments with nature to deny it power. The pandemic has wound down, and we have settled on a regular route for our dates. We have time enough to let the full corridor be completed, before attempting the epic south-north walk from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands. Although I remind myself I have already made this journey several times in my past.
In the early 1990s, my spouse-to-be read Economics at Cambridge while I read Engineering. Every Christmas and summer break she returned home to Malaysia, and I found myself returning to Singapore, determined to work on the "to-be" aspect of our relationship. I made repeated visits to Kuala Lumpur where she was, squatting with male university mates and abusing their hospitality. Having limited means, I made my trips on the affordable KTM (Keretapi Tanah Melayu) trains, setting off at the crack of dawn to maximize my time. Armed with books to endure each ten-hour journey, including immigration, customs, and delays, I hardly looked out the window or at my surroundings.
These trips clearly took place, and I do remember Tanjong Pagar Station at daybreak and dusk. I remember my father driving his besotted son. But it is only when I look at the physical ticket stubs I keep in the drawer, that it strikes home how many journeys I made—five round trips within a year and a half, or 90 to 100 hours on the train. I do not remember what I read on those journeys, what the train interior or exterior looked like, or what myself or fellow passengers ate. What scenes outside did I glimpse? Are those dream flashes of forest and backyard there today? The train did its job, and I moved on. We all moved on since, even the trains and tracks themselves.
There is a Historical Monument display where the Commonwealth housing estate opens onto the rail corridor. Number 29 on the Queenstown heritage trail, the display highlights two previous KTM stations in the vicinity, one of which is today's IKEA, as well as the impact the trains had on residents' daily sleep. I look up from the display, at the apartments, playgrounds, and community vegetable plots. New rail distance markers, in classic black and white, are planted every hundred meters on the corridor, the latest memorial to an idea mooted a century and a half ago. In 50 years' time, will these distance markers remain? Who will be living here? I wonder if I would still be taking walks then.
Each generation, each period adds its layer to history—it is hair-raising to walk past Alexandra Hospital and other WWII battle sites if you know the atrocities that occurred. I step back on to the corridor, standing in the flawed past and the tenuous future. This corridor will survive us. You who are here 100 years hence, I would speak with you.
As we turn round to head home for the morning, apocalyptic visions invade my imagination. Global warming, climate disaster, no zombies, fine, but the next epidemic would be fair game. And survivors, steampunk, solarpunk, this thing has potential! I can write this story. My mind abuzz, we walk back through the underpass gallery of graffiti beneath North Buona Vista Road. Each artist has added their work neatly next to another's, while crafty creepers inch their way across the wall. The fusion of vibrant art and nature seems to celebrate beauty, hope, and harmony, no paint sprayed in anger, no shoot growing in despair. I must be delirious with possibility.
"Hey. I have a conference call at nine."
I hurry to catch up with my wife.
One weekday in office, with scorching temperatures breaching records, I skip lunch and drive a short distance to Tank Road. A stretch of the road is being repaired, between the ethnic Teochew cultural center and the 19th-century Hindu Chettiars' temple Sri Thendayuthapani, but I manage to park by the side. On Tank Road, I look across the dual carriageway Clemenceau Avenue towards the foot of Fort Canning, where the first 1903 Singapore Station, and later a railway goods yard, were sited. It subsequently became a theater and aquarium, and is at present a playground on steroids built for lucky children and luckier adults.
Did Engineer W. J. Du Port stand at this spot, as I stand? The public library has sent me some reference material, but the trail goes cold right after his first and only appearance as railway proposer. Was he involved in the 1889, 1899, and subsequent rail plans, or did he fade from the scene by then? Some engineers' society in London may yet have him in their archives. Cars and commercial vehicles zip by, and I decide it is not worth the heat to cross the carriageway to Rail Ground Zero.
I turn left and walk 60 meters down to a tiny replica Tank Station with name embossed in fresh gold font, a block away from the 1906 station grounds now housing offices. On the phone map, I try to work out how the tracks were routed for the four original stations: Tank/Singapore, Newton, Cluny, and Bukit Timah. I fail at the first crossing—where on Orchard Road did the train cut across? Was it at the former Jewish cemetery and the Istana (Malay royal palace) or somewhere upstream? I pause and wonder why I am so seized with these musings.
I get in the car and head back to work. I will figure out this story.
