North Borneo Steam Railway

I am by no means a railway buff, but there is something quite nice about the idea of steam railway travel with full service. So I splashed out on a trip from Tanjung Aru up to Papar.

Now two things about this steam locomotive. First it is comparatively new, or put another way, it was from the very end of the era of steam travel. 1954. But the oddity compared to anything you would travel on in the UK,  is that its not coal-fired, its a wood-burner.

I can't say the carriages were exactly luxurious, but nice enough. This never was a luxury travel route. Although they are trying to recreate the romance of British North Borneo, this was a working route - built to bring goods from inland plantations to the coast for export.

So, the catch? Well the catch is that although the service and travel is nice enough, the journey isn't. Sabah is beautiful, but this trip doesn't showcase the beauty very much. Lots of it is through Kota Kinabalu's suburbs, so unless you are very partial to construction work in ribbon development, this isn't the place for you.

I tried to catch a few of the best bits...

 Then we made a stop Kinarut to visit the Tsim Shen Tsui Chinese Temple. As you can see, not a major station.

 The Temple, although in the middle of restoration work, was quite a pleasant stopping point. The 18 golden statues of Buddhist monks around the entrance were particularly striking.

 I especially liked this one - "monk after seeing his favourite team score a goal on the telly"?

All aboard again and we chugged back up country. And now some rather nicer country.

 

 And finally to our destination, Papar. Rarely can the concept of better having travelled than arrived be better exemplified than here. To call Papar a one-horse town would be to greatly exaggerate its horse capacity.

Across the road is a rather dilapidated little park, quickly filled by passengers looking for somewhere to go in the 30 minute turnaround time. Note the concrete cattle.

 And as for the town well I did my best to show off its shops and colonial charm...

 But to be honest it was good to get back to the train.

 And be back in time for tiffin. Lunch was served in these successions of cans. Food was pretty nice. Best, as it was new to me, were the stir-fried fern shoots. Really tasty and juicy. You heard it here first.