Singapore is famously known for being a concrete jungle full of high rise buildings and futuristic looking skyscrapers but apart from the manicured parks and botanical gardens, there are many other green spaces not frequented by many visitors. One such unique green space is the Green Corridor.
The Green Corridor is an important part of Singapore’s history that exists along a former railway line to Malaysia. It sometimes is incredible to believe that this space exists parallel to modern Singapore. The Bukit Timah Railway Station was a railway station owned by Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM), the main railway operator in Malaysia. It first opened in 1903 and was rebuilt on the current Singapore-Johor Bahru KTM Inter-city mainline in 1932. The station was eventually closed in the 1940s but became a freight interchange for the currently inoperative Jurong Line from 1965 to the early 1990s.
In July 2011, the line closed following a historic land-swap agreement between the Singapore and Malaysia governments which ended the rail service between Woodlands and Tanjong Pagar in Singapore. Most of the tracks were removed, but there are still a few places with tracks and two thrust bridges left for people to explore. This area is now called the Bukit Timah Railway Corridor or the Green Corridor and is now part of Singapore’s Nature Society and URA’s Rail Corridor project.
The society’s goal is to preserve this important part of Singapore’s railway history, a place people can enjoy nature outside of the busyness that Singapore is so known for as well as marvel at the engineering structures that once made up the train route. The 26km stretch continues to be a favourite by locals for recreational activities and one of my alternative tourist spots to visit when I visit the city state.
