Bukit Timah Railway Station

Bukit Timah Railway Station Former KTM Intercity station Conserved monument of URA
The still operational Bukit Timah Railway Station, with station building in centre. Together with Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, it closed on 1 July 2011.
Station statistics
Address	Bukit Timah, Singapore.
Coordinates	1°20′03″N 103°46′52″E
Lines	Formerly KTM Intercity
Platforms	1 side platform.
Tracks	3
Parking	None
Other information
Opened	1903 (original Tank Road line station) 16 September 2011 (reopened as conserved building)
Closed	1 July 2011 (as a railway station)
Rebuilt	1932
Owned by	Singapore Land Authority

Bukit Timah Railway Station was a railway station (now a conserved recreational building) and crossing loop in Singapore, owned by Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), the main railway operator in Malaysia.

It opened on the dismantled Tank Road mainline in 1903, was rebuilt on the current Singapore–Johor Bahru KTM Intercity mainline in 1932, until the Jurong Line shut down and it was a crossing loop station in the late 1940s until closure.

The station was a freight interchange for the now defunct Jurong Line from 1965 to the early 1990s.

On 1 July 2011 the line closed following a historic land-swop agreement between the Singapore and Malaysia governments.

Current usage

The manually operated signalling room at Bukit Timah Railway Station.

This station was between Tanjong Pagar railway station at the southern end of Singapore island and Woodlands Train Checkpoint at the northern end. It was a crossing loop station and signalling control house.

The token which is dropped off by the driver of the first train (i.e. the moving train seen in the photo) would then be taken by the station master and handed over to the awaiting train (i.e. the one from where the photo is taken). That other train can then proceed into the sector previously passed through by the first train.

Train driver dropping a key token (authority to pass) for the northern sector between Woodlands and Bukit Timah. That dropping takes place moments before he picks up the next one from the station master whilst the train is travelling at about 60 km/h.

The moment the train driver picks up the next key token from the hands of the station master: it is the authority for him to travel along the southern sector between Bukit Timah and Tanjong Pagar.

Closure on 1 July 2011

The station, along with the line between Woodlands at the northern edge of Singapore and Tanjong Pagar at the southern end, closed on 1 July 2011. The cessation was done without any public consulation and announced only after the decision had been taken.^{[citation needed]} It is opposed and lamented by many as representing a great loss of heritage and travel convenience.^{[citation needed]} Following the cessation, Singapore has only approximately a kilometre of main railway line, from Woodlands to Johor Bahru across the Straits of Johor.

The station was gazetted as a conserved building on 27 May 2011.

2010 train derailment

Bukit Timah Railway Station.

The locomotive and two passenger coaches of a KTM train bound for Kuala Lumpur derailed near the Bukit Timah station just after 8am on 9 November 2010. None of the 60 passengers on board were injured. As a result of the derailment, all KTM train services on the day of the incident were cancelled, and services the next day were rescheduled.

The station's new beginning

After the railway line from Tanjong Pagar to Bukit Timah was dismantled, the station was reopened by the Singapore Land Authority on 16 September 2011 as a recreational building, part of Singapore's Nature Society and URA's "Rail Corridor" project.

External links

• Bukit Timah Railway Station - National Heritage Board Marked Trials