School Break Tripping - 2

Train Trip

Present time

Our next outing two days after Broga Hill was taking a train trip to Ipoh. It was a first experience for the kids but not for me. As I walked into KL Sentral, the new KL Train Station, I sensed the different atmosphere from what I’ve been used to 15 years ago. Things have changed for the industry. I missed the old station; with a more relax ambience and old school stuff. Remember those metal stand ticketing machine? Almost mistaken for a statue with fountain! And the small thick cardboard tickets. The train conductor would then goes around the train punching holes into them. 

KL Sentral has that metropolitan driven atmosphere. Hectic. Just like the usual LRT stations all over the city. Combined with shopping retails and kiosks, the mood was different.

It brought me back down memory lane when commuting by train was my favorite thing especially the trip to the rural east coast state. I would normally skip my hometown trip during semester break for an outdoor adventure. Mostly to Pahang and Kelantan. The midnight train was the only best time saving killing and most convenient and cheapest way. Via concession ticket price for student e.g. MYR11 for a return trip. Coaches were lighted with those dim yellow bulb, stimulating the classic mood, and those opened rattling windows letting in the cold night breeze. We can’t survive a normal conversation due to the thundering sound of iron clanging against iron where wheels meet the rail. And sometimes the sound grew even louder when the train slices through those gravels.

Transit at Gemas was always a classic one. We would stop to wait for another train from Singapore. The coaches would then change tracks and split for their own destinations. The normal waiting game would be from 12.00 midnight to 2.00 a.m., but Gemas was never silent. Passengers and business folks would litter the station platform for early morning snacks or hot coffee tied up in a plastic with a straw. The hot curry puff was always the best take away deal for the remaining times aboard the mail train.

Unlike Senandung Malam, its faster/express predecessor, our midnight mail train stops at all stations, be it major ones and also the smallest ones. It takes in all types of cargo that require their mail delivery service which mostly letters, motorcycles and parcels. This mail train cuts through the night like a steel blade.

A few of my trips ended up at a few places in Pahang and Kelantan. Jerantut, Merapoh, Dabong, Gua Musang, Dabong and Tumpat. Some are big stations like Jerantut, Gua Musang and Tumpat, but the rest are merely nothing. Arriving at these stations in the early morning would mean pitch dark experience in the middle of nowhere. And we would only have a small window to get off the train. The stop is only 3 minutes max.

The early morning train into rural Pahang and Kelantan would also be a good eye opener of how life can be as basic as possible for the locals. Train would be their only mode of transportation. School children commute to school. Marketers and traders alike were doing their business on and off the train from stations to stations. Live chickens can be a surprising turn up at times.

Coming back to the present, the speed train can achieve 165 km/hr reducing the time from KL Sentral to Ipoh to about 2 hours 30 minutes; almost same time like driving. My trip down memory lane was longer than the current trip itself. The air-conditioned coaches with LCD tv and comfy seats broke the mood of the old days Nescafe Classic train trip.

In fact, the kids were not quite really enjoying the trip since they were mostly busy haggling with those iPads, iPhones and such.

I wish I still  have those pictures of yesterdays...

Got this from lebai google of Gua Musang

Perhaps I will plan for a revisit to these places, but maybe not by train. Bicycle perhaps...?