searching for sleepers and girders

our start and end points

this morning, three clean-cut retirees set off from sunset way in search of sleepers and girders. our start point was the abandoned rail bridge across sunset way and our end point, the bukit timah train station. at the end, we were transformed into three dirty old men, after having gone through a lot of sleepers and girdles girders. some of the sleepers are still in good shape.

victor, the oldest among us, referred to the trek as 'exploring the angkor wat of singapore'. angkor wat in cambodia are ruins covered by vegetation whereas the angkor wat of singapore is an abandoned railway track covered by trees, grass and all kinds of plants. some sections of the track seem to have disappeared. jason, the youngest among us, was intrigued by the bolt with the '3v' impression. he noticed that this was the only part that had resisted rusting.



as we moved along, we saw kingfishers and parakeets and heard the flutey calls of the orioles. we were also fascinated by some of the plants that we encountered, like the passion flower, the yellow mimosa and one plant with purple flowers and seed pods. however, the most captivating was this rather unusual spider with two sharp horns. we spent about fifteen minutes trying to get a good shot of it.



as it had rained the past two days, our pace was hampered by the soggy ground. that was how the state of the three (dirty) old men came about. we tripped, fell and waded through very wet and muddy ground. we also had to wade through a short tunnel which was flooded in most parts. jason made a check and found that the tunnel runs under clementi road, near where maju camp is located.




when we reached this section, the track again was missing. soon, we found out the reason. the malaysian railway authorities have been dismantling the track. they are in the process of filling up the sections where they had removed the metal rails and the wooden sleepers. we saw a mountain of the ironwood sleepers quite close to the existing track.

while we were walking towards the bukit timah station, a northbound goods train came along. at the station, we struck up a conversation with the attendant. he told us of his encounter with a huge snake in the tunnel. as he was alone at that time, he took the wiser move of not proceeding and so he turned back.




the three dirty old men at the end of the trek. jason actually cannot qualify as an old man although he retired before me. i think he retired about 5 years ago, at the age of 45.