Singapore Quarry Park

The Singapore Quarry Park is part of the new Dairy Farm Nature Park.
It is however located at the farthest southern end of the 63ha park.

Click the picture for a detailed view.

Though the track is paved and is a gentle walk from the park entrance, the Quarry is about 3km from the park entrance, or about 1.5km from the nearer Car Park A at the junction of Upper Bukit Timah and Dairy Farm Roads.

Click on the map for detailed view.

I used to live at Fuyong Estate located between Dairy Farm and the Singapore Quarry.
This was at the time when the quarry was still in operation.
I can remember the daily 12 noon siren followed by the dynamite blasts.
Blasting took place once a day and the reverberations could be felt almost a kilometer away.

The quarry is now defunct. It was closed in the late 1980s when quarrying activities were moved offshore and allowed only on Pulau Ubin. The old quarry was recently converted to a nature park and wildlife reserve.
Ever since the Singapore Quarry Park was opened to the public, it has become a nature lovers and photographers mecca. Rare bird species like the Little Grebe can now be found, along with monitor lizards and dragonflies.

Here's a short video clip I made today of my visit to the Singapore Quarry Park.
It has a tip on a shortcut to the Singapore Quarry if you don't want to trek the 3km route!

The end of the Line.

After more than 50 years, the Malaysian KTM railway line and the land it sits on were finally surrendered back to Singapore on 1st July 2011. The railway tracks will soon be dismantled while the government ponders over the fate of the strip of land that runs from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands.

With the exception of the Tanjong Pagar Station, which is now gazetted as a national monument, the rest of the infrastructure will disappear by the end of this month. These include the bottleneck bridges at Hillview, Hindhede and Sunset Way which I previously wrote about.  (click here for that blog)

Today I visited the truss bridge at Upper Bukit Timah and wandered along the tracks up to Hillview for a last look. Not surprisingly, so many others were also there to capture that last piece of memorabilia before it's all gone.

That bridge near the Rail Mall holds a bit more memories for me than any other part of the railway line. For about 10 years between the 70s & 80s, I  lived at Fuyong Estate which is located just beside that bridge. (Rail Mall is part of Fuyong Estate, here in this blog).

The truss bridge over Upper Bukit Timah Road.
Fuyong Estate is located just on the left of the photo.

The railway line is open to visitors till the end of July.

More pictures of the railway can be found on my photo blog here.

Postscript (9 July 2011)

Access to the tracks from Chia Eng Say Road (top photo) was a bit bit treacherous on the day I visited, but within the week, someone had graciously carved out a temporary flight of steps (above). 

So now it'll be easier for anyone who want to look at the railway one last time.
After July, it will be out-of-bounds to the public.