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Paul Bigland

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Paul Bigland

Category Archives: Monorails

Asian adventure day 53. KL return day 3…

04 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by Paul Bigland in Food and drink, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monorails, Photography, Railways, Transport

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Food and drink, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monorails, Photography, Railways, Travel

As with most mornings here in KL I was woken by the sound of the Muezzin’s tones as the call to prayer was announced from the local mosque which is literally only a car-park away. I don’t mind this at all, I don’t have to set my alarm-clock and the sounds are far less jarring and almost reassuring. After all, these ages old calls are so familiar to anyone who’s spent much time in a Muslim country’s. The place I normally go to for my roti canai breakfast normally has Muslim devotional music playing in the background. It’s similar to Qawwali music made famous in the UK by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Maybe the fact I had a CD of his and I’ve always enjoyed world music has influenced my sensibilities. When I went for breakfast yesterday the younger member of staff had changed the music to techno ‘Hindi Pop’ which was far more intrusive and less easy on the ear!

I didn’t plump for roti this morning, instead I tried Mee Sarawak at a place down the road that I’d spotted the other day. ‘Mee’ means noodles whilst Sarawak is the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo that’s bigger than the peninsular. I must get there one day.

Anyway, Mee Sarawak consists of noodles (obviously) with slices of pork and chicken, accompanied with a fiery chili dip and a broth made from the meat and noodle water with added spring onions. This being Asia nothing is wasted which means the pork hasn’t had the fat removed. Instead you have a fine layer of crackling atop it. It’s delicious but perhaps not the thing if you’re counting calories. As I walk around 17,000 steps and only eat two meals a day I’m not that bothered!

After eating a sizeable chunk of my day was spent getting picture of and exploring the city’s only monorail system from end to end. Looking through my picture archive I’d realised I’d not done this since 2012. In which time the size of the trains has doubled and the stations have increased in size. to cope with ’em. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll do a blog dedicated to the network in the future, now I have the updated pictures to do a ‘now and then’.

Another place I visited today was a beautiful clan-house/temple dedicated to the those Chinese with the surname ‘Chan’. It’s a fascinating place as it explains the origins of the name and how the Chans have spread. I have a passing personal interest in this as the first Chinese people ever I met when I was growing up in Southport were a Chan family who moved in next to my maternal Grandmother way back in the 1960s. There’s a story to tell there, but that’s for another day…

Now I’m relaxing back at my hotel whilst editing pictures and watching crap on Netflix. It being Saturday Chinatown’s packed with people, so I’m happy to be out of the way. I much prefer it during the week when it’s not choked with people and cars.

To finish my blog here’s a few pictures from the day.

This wonderful piece of craftwork is displayed above the door of the Chan temple.

Part of the informative displays inside the temple/clan house.

Do the maths. Each one of these 4-car monorail trains can carry up to 430 passengers. How many of the cars below only contain 1 person? Oh, spot the breakdown which has made matters worse!

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18th January picture of the day…

18 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Paul Bigland in Australia, Monorails, Photography, Picture of the day, Travel

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Australia, Monorails, Picture of the day, Travel

Another week begins and it’s indistinguishable from every other lockdown week as the routine doesn’t really vary – unless you count doing the same things in a different order, just to try and add some variety and a frisson of excitement as this is about as good as it gets right now!

Therefore I won’t bore you with the mundanities of life, I’ll cut straight to the chase and take you to the picture of the day. This one comes from the latest batch of old slide scans which will be added to my website tomorrow. I took it near Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia in the last week of January 1998.

With the Sydney Tower in the background, the monorail passes over the heads of tourists walking to the harbour. Monorails have never really taken off as a means of mass transit, mainly due to their low-speed, limited capacity and inflexibility.

Sydney’s monorail was an eight station, 2.2 mile loop that opened in July 1988. It connected Darling Harbour, Chinatown and the central business and shopping districts in an anti-clockwise loop. Six trains of seven cars worked services on the loop, working from a depot in Pyrmont. The never met its passenger projects and the last franchise that operated it was bought out by the New South Wales Government in 2012. On June 30th 2013 the monorail was closed to make way for the new Sydney Convention and Exhibition centre. The monorail tracks were dismantled shortly afterwards.

2 cars from one of the trains and a short section of track are preserved at the Powerhouse museum in Sydney.

Whilst monorails haven’t had much success, one operates in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (opened in 2003) and another in Melaka. Another (larger) system in Bangkok, Thailand is due to open later this year. There are other systems dotted around the world, mostly in China and Japan, but most as short systems serving amusement parks or airports, like this suspended system in Dusseldorf, Germany. Of course, Germany also has the father of them all, in Wuppertal!

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

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