RAILWAY SERVICE STILL STUCK IN THE 70’S

OLD…… very old diesel locomotive.

By : DAP MEDIA

THE PAKATAN Rakyat team took a walk to look at the condition and situation in the Beaufort railway station on Monday. To their surprise, they found themselves back in time to the 70’s when they saw the old train and its locomotive.

The PR Member of Parliament from Kota Kinabalu Hiew King Cheu led the PR team comprising of DAP and PKR members. Among them were Edward Ewol Mujie, Taufik Ruschi, Jamil Zakaria, Ong Boon Ho, and others.

The MP was shocked when he saw many passengers sitting in a train carriage which is from the 70’s era. He saw many crowded people sitting on a row of timber bench set in the centre part of the train carriage with both doors slide wide open.

CARGO…. the old cargo carriage seated with full house passengers with cargos

There were bags of cement, other goods and even a bicycle stuffed in it. The cabin has no fans and the people are sitting shoulder rubbing shoulder.

Hiew said this is definitely a cargo carriage for the stacking of goods, why there is so many people crowdedly sitting in a goods carriage, where are the rules and regulations, and what is the Safety Board of the Transport Ministry has to say about this?

This railway in Sabah is spending heavily on the public fund. The government had spent at least some RM400 million on the upgrading and renewal program, but looking at the condition of the railway today you can feel that our money is not well spent. There is actually not worth the amount of money spent, in another words the money is wasted.

The railway users complained to the MP that they also felt that they have been let down of not having the equal standard of the railway service in Semenanjong where they have the good comfortable cabins and fast train service. There is even air-conditioning too. Here they don’t even get to sit on comfortable seats, and they are forced to sit with cement and cargo.

For the KK to Beaufort route it takes about 2.5 hours and the route from Beaufort to Tenom takes another 3 to 4 hours if there is no derailment or engine break-down. The locomotive is a diesel power engine and it is a museum piece, Hiew said it might be as old as him, and he remembers when he was 10 years old, he rode in the same old train before.

The MP said it is impossible to have such pieces of museum item still running on our railway. It is old and not reliable and yet these old junks are still taking the people for a ride.

What is the government going to do for us, or they are just going to let these junks run until they fall into pieces and retire permanently? Why after spending so many hundred millions of ringgits, we still get such train service, there must be something very seriously wrong, ‘Another project by Barisan National’?