Reviews & Press : : Penang Trams, Trolleybuses & Railways: Municipal Transport History 1880s-1963

The Star
Sunday, 2 April 2006
Review by Leong Shen-Li

Have tracks will travel

PENANG TRAMS, TROLLEYBUSES & RAILWAYS
Municipal Transport History 1880s-1963
By Ric Francis and Colin Ganley
Publisher: Areca Books, 111 pages
(ISBN 983-42834-0-7)

I AM sure neither Ric Francis nor Colin Ganley intended to release their excellent book just when public transport in this country, and especially in Penang, is in a state of crisis.

The Australian and British co-authors of this hardcover publication on Penang's public transport history – very likely the first in this country on such a topic – effectively depict how far ahead the Pearl of the Orient was when it came to moving people around in the late 19th and early 20th century. And in doing so, they inevitably show how far downhill the country has gone today.

The story of the deplorable state of public transport is the same throughout Malaysia, but Penang’s tale is particularly painful.

Francis’ and Ganley’s five years of research shows that the island was the pioneer when it came to fulfilling the need to get from one place to another, whether for work or leisure. It is the only place in Malaysia which can boast ever having a tram service.

The service started in the 1880s as a steam tramway which ran from the jetty to Air Itam. It reached its zenith in the early 1990s, when a fleet of 14 electric trams ran from the jetty to Air Itam and Jelutong. The 11-minute frequency of those trams and the considerable profits from the service could put some current urban bus operators to shame.

Penang's trams met their end because of the lack of funds for maintenance and spare parts, and competition from other modes of transport – in this case, the advent of privately-owned “mosquito buses”.

But just before the motorbus hit the roads and reigned supreme, the George Town Municipal Council introduced trolleybuses to replace the trams. These ran on electricity supplied via parallel overhead wires, thus providing an environment-friendly and what we would today term a “sustainable” mode of transport.

As with the trams, Penang was the first and only place in Malaysia to use trolleybuses.

The authors devote a fairly large portion of the book to this colourful era of Penang’s public transport history. They provide amazing details on the growth of the trolleybus system, with appendices of the bus fleets, complete with manufacturer's name, chassis numbers and duration of service.

They even point out that some of the poles used to support the overhead wires for the trolleybus have survived till today: these stand as lampposts along several roads in Jelutong.

As with most public transport stories, it was the ill-conceived decisions of the George Town Municipal Council (one of which was replacing a sustainable system with one that added to pollution), which brought an end to this efficient and environment-friendly mode of transport.

The last of Penang’s trolleybuses stopped running at the end of July 1961; they were completely replaced with combustion engine buses.

To complete the story of railways in Penang, Francis and Ganley include the history of the much-loved Penang Hill funicular railway and the relatively unknown electric railway service which hauled tin from the Eastern Smelting Company, then located at Jalan Datuk Keramat, to the Penang Port.

Francis and Ganley are, of course, hardcore transport enthusiasts and it might take another transport buff, or perhaps a historian, to fully appreciate their efforts. But what is truly amazing is the amount of work that went into creating this book. They dug up records of tram, trolleybus and bus fleets, route maps, old bus tickets and newspaper cuttings and put them together so effectively.

Another thing which really captures the reader's attention is the inclusion of hundreds of old photographs, postcards and illustrations, some borrowed from the personal collections of ex-council members and ex-administrators from the British era. On their own, these make the book worth having.

Penang heritage activist Khoo Salma Nasution did an excellent job with the editing and layout of Penang Trams, Trolleybuses and Railways (www.arecabooks.com) and the sourcing of some photographs. It is also commendable that the Penang Municipal Council supported the book project.