Malaysian main line electrification progress

ELECTRIFICATION of the last section of Malaysia’s main north-south route is on track for completion in 2022.

The RM9.5 billion (£1.7 billion) project, which is being funded by the Malaysian government, will upgrade or replace the existing 197km old single track route operated by national railway company Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTM) from Johor Bahru north to Gemas, with an electrified double track 140km/h line.

New Electric Train Service (ETS) EMUs will replace diesel loco hauled trains, and travel times between Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru

(across the Strait of Johor from Singapore) will be reduced to four hours from seven hours currently. Eleven stations will be upgraded and three new stations built, including one at Senai near to the airport, replacing the old halt.

KTM Class 93 six-car ETS EMUs, supplied by CRRC in China but mostly assembled in Malaysia, already run north from Gemas on the line to Kuala Lumpur and Butterworth (opposite Penang) and further north to the northern tip of Malaysia at Pandang Besar. Nineteen Class 93 trains are in use and another 10 are planned.

Rapid transit

Plans for a new high speed line between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore were formally abandoned by both governments in January

2021. However, in early 2021 construction began on both sides of the border for a new 4km long double track Rapid Transit System from the Johor Bahru station to Woodlands North in Singapore, where connections to Singapore’s new Thomson-East Coast MRT line will be possible.

The 43km Thomson-East Coast MRT line will open in stages until 2027, but the northernmost section from Woodlands North to Woodlands South opened on January 31, 2020, enabling connections to the rest of the MRT network at Woodlands MRT.

The Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System, which will cross the Straits of Johor on a bridge, is due for completion in December 2026 and will ease the busy Causeway border crossing between the two countries which has been in place since 1924.

KTM long distance rail services used to operate over the causeway but they ended in 2015; services to the historic Tanjong Pagar railway station in Singapore itself having ended in June 2011. A shuttle service currently runs frequently between Woodlands KTM and Johor Bahru, but this will cease when the new Rapid Transit system opens.

■ Our thanks to Julian Williams for some of the information in this item.

JULIAN WILLIAMS Most of the KTM Class 93 trains were assembled in Malaysia. Set No. 204, which was the last wholly built in China, is seen at Gemas on March 20, 2019.

DARREN WOOD The electrification will replace diesel loco hauled trains. KTM Class 24 diesel No. 24121 is seen at Labis between Gemas and Johor Bahru on July 9, 2013. The 26 Class 24 locomotives which incorporate a 2400hp Pielstick SP16 PA4V 200VG engine were all built in 1987 by Toshiba in Japan.