Malay Land Railways

Ready for the same old story?

According to a report, Malaysia's national railway company Keretapi Tanah Melayu (or loosely translated as Malay Land Railways or Malayan Railways in English) has been steadily making improvements that are starting to show up on its bottomline despite the tough operating environment.

The report said the rail operator managed to narrow its unavoidable losses by close to 21% last year from RM131 million in 2005 on account of efforts to increase revenue, reduce expenditure and improve efficiency.

That's definitely not my impression. I have not noticed any marked improvement in its efficiency. See earlier postings.

Train services in Malaysia continue to be behind time and the service below par. Grandma uses the train quite often for her travel from KL to see me in Singapore. She takes the train because she's not familiar with the bus service, which is also more expensive for senior citizens.

Mom and dad will always discount the train arrival time by about one hour. They will still be in time to pick grandma up after the 7-8 hour journey. Cars and buses take only 4 hours to cover the 320-km distance between Singapore and KL. A bullet train service will cut down travel time to just 90 minutes between the capitals of the two countries but the plan remains a piped dream.

Planes take less than one hour but Malaysia and Singapore still won't open up the route to budget airlines. The sector continues to be dominated by the national carriers of the two countries. And the two governments recently signed a pact to exclude the sector from the Competition Act despite the obvious anti-competitive nature of the move.

This is despite the fact that the Asean Free Skies pact is set to kick in by next year. Nevertheless, Singapore will continue to push for complete open skies with Malaysia and within Asean.

In the meantime, grandma will have to put up with the slow Malaysian train service, which was first introduced by the British more than 100 years ago.

Images of Beijing, part 3

Uncle Fatso has taken some contrasting pix of the old and the new during his train ride to Beijing. You can see old houses and new apartments, old train and new train system. Of course, some things remain unchanged -- the railway tracks.

Updated: Malay Land Railway

The massive rains have caused havoc to southern and eastern Malaysia. The country is still cleaning up the mess.

As widely reported, the rail service from Singapore to certain parts of Malaysia has been disrupted due to the floods. The service disruption is aptly captured in this rather interesting picture in New Straits Times. Several observations can be made about the disruption of the train service in Malaysia:

1. First, the current single track system operated by the anachronistically named Keretapi Tanah Melayu (Malay Land Railway or Malayan Railway instead of Malaysian Railway) is obviously inadequate. Malaysia needs a double-tracking system to allow two-way traffic. The second line can still be used in the event of disruption to the first line. How can Malaysia move goods and people fast using a rail network that was built by the British in the late 19th century?

2. It's perhaps better to embark on a fast train service project in Malaysia that will require a stronger foundation for the tracks. Such tracks won't be as easily dislodged as the old gravel system to support the single track.

MMC and Gamuda had proposed a double-tracking railway system for a fast train service but the RM14.5-billion project was shelved by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi three years ago. Malaysian tycoon Francis Yeoh of YTL is now proposing a bullet train service between KL and Singapore but it's not known if the train service will materialise as well.

3. The disruption of the rail service has raised an interesting academic conundrum for bilateral ties between Malaysia and Singapore.

It is well known that Malaysia has legal title to the railway land in Singapore to operate a railway service through KTM. However, under the terms of the lease, should Malaysia stop operating its railway service to Singapore, the Malaysian railway land in Singapore reverts to Singapore (That is why KTM had been runing the shabby train service to Singapore although it was probably losing money from carrying so few passengers on each trip!)

The point is probably moot because Malaysia and Singapore had signed the so-called Points of Agreement to jointly re-develop the Malaysian railway land in Singapore in 1990. However, the two governments have not been able to come to terms on basic points in the POA in the past 16 years.

In fact, Malaysia's former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad didn't quite recognise the POA, saying it was not ratified by the Malaysian Parliament -- eight years after it was signed by former Singapore PM Lee Kuan Yew and ex-Malaysian Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin.

So what will happen to the Malaysian railway land in Singapore if Malaysia uses the damage caused by the flood as an excuse to stop its unpopular* train service to Singapore indefinitely?

*The train service is not the most popular mode of transport between Singapore and KL as it takes more than seven hours on the current single track. Furthermore, it's faster to travel by highway (4 hours) and planes (45 minutes). The KTM service will become even more anachronistic once the Asean open-skies pact takes effect in 2008, a move that will allow budget airlines to fly more freely between KL and Singapore and other Asean cities.

Latest: KTM has resumed train service since Christmas Eve, according to Singapore TV channel Channel NewsAsia. But KTM is still a shabby service!