Besides taking intercity buses, taking the train is also a fairly reliable way to get around Malaysia.
Interestingly, taking the train is not faster than taking the bus. In many cases, it’s slower, but that’s largely because of the North-South Expressway.
I imagine that for places not along the North-South Expressway, taking the train would be faster or at least similar.
The start/end point for the train is JB Sentral, located between CIQ building and City Square.
Despite having been to City Square many times, I never noticed JB Sentral was a train station until the first time I took a train here.
So anyway, I don’t usually take train from JB Sentral. That’s because the train leaves at a fixed time, and the Causeway tends to jam, or have a long queue at immigration, which means the timing I arrive at JB Sentral would be unpredictable.
But when I come back to Singapore, I usually go by train, because JB Sentral is right next to CIQ. That makes it convenient to get home.
Buying train tickets
In the past, I used to go to the counter at each train station to buy my ticket. During my most recent train ride, when I took out my paper ticket for the inspector to clip, I noticed some other passengers show him their ticket from their mobile phone.
Then I came to realise that KTM has a mobile app. It is so much more convenient to use the mobile app to buy train tickets.
You can easily check availability of tickets, choose your seat, or book way in advance.
To use the app, you first need to create an account with your details. When you enter the details, such as your full name and email address, make sure you enter them correctly, because you won’t be able to change these details afterwards. You will also need your passport number, but this can be changed later.
Breaking down the peninsula
First, let me explain how Peninsula Malaysia is laid out. Most people are familiar with the west coast of Malaysia, where you have Batu Pahat, Melaka, Port Dickson, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Penang, Sungei Petani, and Alor Setar.
Then there is the east coast, where you have Desaru, Mersing, Endau, Pekan, Kuantan, Terengganu, and Kelantan, the last two being states because I don’t know the town names.
Then there is the middle which is Kluang, Segamat, Gemas. Mentakab, Kuala Lipis, Gua Musang, and a whole bunch of town names I’ve never heard of before.
The mountain range between the two paths forces the middle path towards the east and it ends at Kota Bharu in Kelantan.
In fact, in the middle of the northern part of the peninsula, there’s a section where there aren’t even any roads.
If you open this section in Google Maps in ‘Terrain’ mode, you’ll understand why.
Where you can go
From JB Sentral, you can take the train as far as Gemas, which is located at the border of the states of Johor and Negri Sembilan. The line is called the Southern Express, or KTM Intercity (Ekspres Selatan).
From Gemas, the train system splits into two paths. The first heads west, towards Kuala Lumpur, passes Ipoh and Butterworth, and ends at Padang Besar, a town on the border of Malaysia and Thailand.
On the other side of the border is the Thai town of… Padang Besar, Thailand, which is a completely different town from Padang Besar, Malaysia. 😂
This line that links Gemas and Padang Besar is called Electric Train Service (ETS).
The second train line takes you through the middle path, where you end up at Tumpat in Kelantan. This line is called KTM Intercity (Ekspres Rakyat Timuran), which means ‘Eastern People’s Express’.
This screenshot of Google Maps shows you roughly the two paths of the train system. Most of the stars are train stations, but also includes bus stations in the lower half of the map. The point where the two tracks meet is Gemas.
It’s taken me quite a while to figure out how this works, so I hope you find it useful.
As you can see, there are many, many towns in Malaysia that one can explore, without having to go to the same few that people tend to go to.
I think it’s going to take me a few years to thoroughly explore just the one country of Malaysia.
Daniel Tay 