Change is about to come to the Rail Corridor. Its southern half will be closed from the second quarter of 2016 to allow a water pipe to be laid under it, and I suppose that before it can recover from this intervention, we could see work being started on transforming parts of the corridor into a space that will have an appeal to the wider community.
The stretch of the corridor in the days of the railway (c. 2010) at the former Tanglin Halt – a place that could transport you far from the madness that is Singapore.
I wish to remember the corridor as it was in days when it attracted little interest. Ignored and left to the railway, the space grew into one that had a magical feel to it, a space one could quite easily lose oneself in. While the space still serves as an escape some four and a half years after the railway ceased operating through it, its magic has diminished. Stripped of most of its railway paraphernalia, turfed over, trampled on and worked on, there is now quite a different feel to the corridor.
The Rail Corridor, near the Clementi woodland, in greener days.
One stretch of the railway I would like to remember as it was is what, if the planners have their way, will become a “Cultural Valley”, “a vibrant activity space where workers and nearby residents can enjoy activities such as outdoor film screenings”. It is what I hope will not be, a transformation that threatens to have us forget the joy the space would once have given us.
Already in a state of flux – parts of the same stretch near the Clementi woodland have temporarily taken on the appearance of the concretised world that the railway has long kept away.
Already, we have all but forgotten it as a train stop, Tanglin Halt; even if this is remembered in the name of the adjacent public housing neighbourhood. Lines also branched off in the area, serving the British military at Wessex Estate and at Ayer Rajah. The stop, the branch lines, and its platform, had disappeared by the time I first set eye on the stretch. All that was left of the halt was a rather worn looking building, decorated as all abandoned buildings outside of Singapore might be (technically it stood on a piece of Malaysia). That vanished from sight almost immediately after the land was handed back; an aberration perhaps in the landscape that needed to be removed once it had become incorporated into the overly manicured Singaporean landscape.
A 1945 map showing the train halt.
The Tanglin Halt area today.
The Cultural Valley being proposed at Buona Vista.
It is strange that similar renderings found on the missing structure, have, with official sanction, decorate the structures under a road bridge just a stone’s throw away. The Rail Corridor Art Space, thought up by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the National Arts Council (NAC), which was launched in December 2013, provided would be graffiti artists with an outlet to add colour to what would otherwise have been the grey of dull concrete.
The southward view.
And a northward view.
Like the corridor, the space will soon lose its colour. Work to lay the pipe will require the corridor south of Holland Road, including this Buona Vista stretch, to be closed. While we can look forward to sections of it progressively reopened from the fourth quarter of 2017, this stretch of the corridor would probably bear no resemblance at all to the magical world I might once have found an escape in.
Coloured concrete under the Commonwealth Avenue viaduct.
The Long and Winding Road 
Another green artery will be lost forever. These green arteries are vital corridors for wildlife travelling between the isolated patches of jungle which remain. During the 50 or more years which I have been visiting Singapore the amount of wildlife has diminished considerably due to the concrete onslaught and the fight against all kinds of insects in the quest to be rid of mosquitoes by continual spraying of insecticide. Frugivorous birds such as Bulbuls, Orioles and Hornbills are still plentiful but the insectivorous birds are declining considerably. On my last visits, this month, of 3 and 8 days, I saw no Drongo’s, which used to be abundant and only one Flycatcher when there used to be several species. Even the Catchment area appears to have far fewer birds in general than it had 20-30 years ago.
Remember the elephants and tigers which roamed the island 200 years ago? Now they are only found in zoos. In another 200 years the same will apply to many bird species.
I really wish it had been preserved into some kind of national park/heritage trail, but developing into an amusement park of sorts returns a higher yield I am sure. 😦