For instance, many do not know of the existence of a railway line connecting Ipoh to Tronoh. Not only did it exist for 40 years, it was once the busiest railway line in all Malaya!
So, where is it now? And what happened to it?
These were the questions 36-year-old Filipino-Chinese documentary filmmaker, Ansell Tan, hoped to answer through his 30-minute documentary, “The Forgotten Railway of Kinta Valley.”
FMT Lifestyle spoke with Tan recently about his findings. He said his interest with the subject was sparked after moving to his wife’s hometown of Ipoh five years ago.
“During Covid, I had a lot of time and I wanted to know more about the history of my new hometown.”
For research, he visited the Hakka Tin Miners’ Club in Ipoh and came across a book which mentioned the lost railway line.
As surprising as it was to learn about the railway, he was equally surprised about the locals’ lack of knowledge regarding its existence.
“People my age don’t really know how tin-mining is the reason why everyone is here,” said Tan. “All these people wouldn’t have migrated and settled down if not for the tin-mining boom at the time.”
In fact, at one point in history, up to 25% of all tin globally was sourced from the Kinta Valley, before the industry’s collapse in the 1980s.
The Ipoh-Tronoh line stuck with Tan long enough that he decided to make it the centre of his story when applying for a grant from Think City, a Khazanah Nasional subsidiary.
“The goal in mind was to make Perak’s tin-mining heritage understandable and relatable to people,” he said.
According to Tan, the Ipoh-Tronoh railway was instrumental in Perak’s early development as it ferried heavy equipment and tin ore from remote mines to Ipoh, which were taken to Malaya’s ports for processing and export. It even ferried the industry’s labourers to and from work.
Before it was built in 1908, tin mining towkays protested as the line would run through their land; nevertheless, the British went ahead with its construction.
The 24km railway ran through the towns of Menglembu, Lahat, Papan, Pusing, Siputeh, and Tronoh, providing schoolchildren in rural Perak access to schools in Ipoh.
“Before it was built, the British had in mind that the railway would provide free passes to students. Thousands of students must have benefitted from the convenient transportation.”
If this railway was so important, what happened to it?
Tan revealed the line’s demise came about during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. “The Japanese needed to build the infamous Death Railway at the Siam-Burma border, so they decided to dismantle some railway lines in Southeast Asia.” The Ipoh-Tronoh railway branch was one of the casualties.
Tan noted that tens of thousands of Perakians were recruited by the Japanese to build the Death Railway; many never returned.
He also said that many people outside Malaysia are aware about the Death Railway, but not about its connection to Malaysia. “Even fewer people know its connection to Ipoh.”
Apparently, Tan has been told that you can find bits and pieces of the Ipoh-Tronoh line in Thailand, which can be identified by engravings of “FMS”, the initials for the Federated Malay States.
Funnily enough, when the British planned to rebuild the branch line after WWII, the tin mining towkays protested again as they wanted to mine the land formerly occupied by the railway.
In 1948, the railway land was converted into mining land for the state to open for bidding. “And that is how we lost the railway for short-term gain,” Tan said.
The loss of the railway branch, once the busiest in the peninsular, affected the overall development of Kinta Valley in the following decades, said Tan.
Thus, his documentary aims to create awareness among the locals about how “one way or another, all families in Ipoh are related to the tin-mining industry,” he said.
“As locals, we live here, we work here, our children are born here. Their livelihoods are here. But if we don’t know our past, we can’t figure out our future.”
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