Nestled in a corner of Bukit Timah Road is the long-forgotten Bukit Timah Railway Station. Not many people knows of its existence. A signboard near King Albert Park, just below the iconic Railway Bridge spanning across Bukit Timah and Dunearn Roads, points towards this charming little station.
The hidden passage that leads to the Bukit Timah Railway Station is about 200 metres long and up a gradual slope. As one approaches the end of the slope, she is greeted by the railway tracks on the left running next to the condominium The Sterling.
Compared to the grandiose of the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, the Bukit Timah Railway Station is a charming, quaint station, not unlike some KTM stations in some small towns in Malaysia, such as the one in Kulai, Johor.
The Bukit Timah Station was built in 1932, but it has stopped operating as a embarkation/disembarkation station for passengers for some time already. These days, it is used as a passing loop, where a delayed train stops to wait for another from the opposite direction to pass, since the railway system here is a single-track system.
Singapura to the South, Woodlands to the North.
It must have been a really long time since a train passenger last sat there to wait for a train.
These control levers at Bukit Timah Railway Station allow the Station Master to control the railway signals as well as to switch tracks in the vicinity of the Station.
At the Bukit Timah Railway Station, the Station Master would receive a Key Token from an incoming train. This old-fashioned practice is still in place to ensure that at any one time, there is only one train on the single-track railway within Singapore.
A Key Token is being placed at the post by a Malaysia-bound train approaching the Bukit Timah Railway Station.
After a Malaysia-bound train leaves the Bukit Timah Railway Station, it will go across Bukit Timah and Dunearn Roads via a railway bridge, first of four overhead railway bridges from Bukit Timah to Woodlands.
Location of this bridge:
