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Latest additions (3rd April 2013) are Michael Pass's pictures at Pekan
and Port Dickson.
For active preserved steam in Malaysia, you have
to go to Sabah where the a tourist service operated for some years and will
presumably be re-instated when the current prolonged rebuilding of the
railway is completed - at the time of writing (May 2009) it is literally
running years late. See the North Borneo Railway website for the latest
information, www.northborneorailway.com.my. (Service
was terminated during the pandemic and never restarted. RD)
Tim Light has posted a list of known
preserved locomotives here on http://www.timlightnostalgia.co.uk/KTM/Preservation.html
- link dead by 24th March 2016,
however positive information on several entries is sadly lacking. So please
email me with any additions and corrections for me to post here and forward
to Tim, similarly, if you have original pictures to upload here.
The longest preserved locomotives are those
outside the national museum in Kuala Lumpur, 321.01 and 531.01, these are
Chris Grimes' pictures from 2009:
Chris also notes that ex-USATC ‘Plymouth’ Gas-Mechanical 5054/45 is situated on the island
platform of the old station and there is also a museum of small exhibits and
photographs in the former booking hall.
Outside Kuala Lumpur, there are four locations I know with preserved steam locomotives for
certain. By the late 1970s, I knew of just four class 56 survivors, namely
562.04, 564.25, 564.33 and 564.36. Now 564.36 'Temerloh' in Johor Baru is
indeed that locomotive but unless someone can prove otherwise, I will
state that the locomotive at Bukit Mertajam (formerly Butterworth) is not
564.25 but 562.04, the locomotive at Port Dickson is 564.25 and not 564.12
or 564.21 and that the locomotive at Pekan is 564.33 and not 564.34.
The Military Museum at Port Dickson has '564.21' or '564.12' the number has been changed at some
stage. There are
pictures of it on this site http://mfrna.tripod.com/ktmpic3.htm.
I do not believe for as moment that either is correct as neither were in evidence in
Kuala Lumpur in the mid-1970s when the (alleged) remaining steam stock was
gathered there and several put back into use owing to a power shortage.
564.12 is a 'famous locomotive' of the former Malayan Railway as it hauled
the first train express train out of KL on 2nd June 1953 for which it was
temporarily renamed 'Coronation'. More conventionally it was also named 'Krian' and 'Alor
Gajah' as nameplates and/or numbers tended to get swapped around! For the
record 564.21 was 'Selama'. This is Mike Pass's 2013 picture, the 'Alor
Gajah' nameplate is non-prototypical and meaningless in terms of
identification. For more pictures, see http://turbinemanlog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/old-trains-of-malaya-part-1.html.
564.36 'Temerloh' was at Gemas, the last
steam locomotive to have worked on KTM, officially preserved in 1975 along
with 564.33 'Jelebu' (which has not been reported for many years), it
worked off and on through the 1980s and into the 1990s, most recently on
the short-lived Peninsular Line luxury train project. This is Chris
Cairns' picture from 2007, but by November 2010, it was reported to have
been sent for display at the new Johor Bahru Sentral station.
At Bukit Mertajam is 564.25 'Kuala Lumpur",
again this is Chris Grimes's picture from 2009 when it was at Butterworth.
As several enthusiasts have pointed out, this is actually a pre-WW2
example and as such is almost certainly 562.04. By 2025 it had been
relocated to Seremban for restoration.
Appropriately named 564.34 'Pekan' is at the Sultan of Pahang's palace in
Pekan (or rather nearby at the Polo Grounds). However, I am not at all sure
that this is really that loco. Mike Pass's photographs show that its plates
are non-prototypical and for that reason they have no validity in assigning
an identity. For more pictures, see http://turbinemanlog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/old-trains-of-malaya-part-2.html.
Most likely it is actually 564.33.
There are a number of 'heritage diesels'
reported by Tim again on http://www.timlightnostalgia.co.uk/KTM/Preservation.html
- link dead by 24th March 2016.
One of the Hitachi diesels from the Bukit Besi industrial line is
preserved at Terengganu Museum - http://turbinemanlog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Old%20Trains%20of%20Malaya.
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