negative penang – penang hill breakdown

last monday, 21 sept, which was the 2nd day of hari raya, a public holiday, my sister’s ex-classmate, who also knows our family, came for a visit in the afternoon about 4.00pm. we were talking something about penang sight-seeing places, when the friend remarked “we have our penang hill”.  i responded with “the train always breakdown”.

then suddenly, the next day 22 sept, i read in the paper that 500 holiday-makers were stranded in penang hill at 6.45pm on 21 sept! because of a breakdown! aha! there! told you so!

apparently it was due to an electrical problem in the engine room.

what? how come the penang hill railway service so lousy? so often we heard of breakdown.  true, the frequent breakdown is really scaring tourists away from visiting penang hill. well for those who had been there, they will shrug and say “there’s nothing to see/do in penang hill. don’t go.” true in a way but then if a person hasn’t been there before, i do encourage her/him to go! that’s me all right. if you tell me a certain holiday spot is no good, lousy and all that negative remarks but i haven’t been there before, yet i still want to go!

ok coming back to penang hill, looks like some tourists agents were not happy that heritage lovers had been urging the government not to upgrade the hill railway system. according to eddy law, chairman of association of tourism attractions penang, if the system is not upgraded, and with the present old system, breakdown always occured, this will have bad repercussion for the tourism industry.

hmm… change over to a complete new system? and the ‘heritage’ of penang hill won’t be lost? i don’t know… i’m not really a 100% heritage fan and nor do i know much about railway system.  er… i mean i know zilch! about railway system… very unlike my rail expert friend, aussie ric francis. say, ric did a study of the penang hill railway system before. perhaps the government can seek his advice.

whatever it is, i just hope that because of the frequent breakdowns, it won’t frightened tourists away… though there’s nothing much to see/do in penang hill. oh dear me. i had said it. lol. no no, if you are a first timer visitor, you should go! there are many residents staying in penang hill… somewhere lower station and middle station  i think… and it is they that we should be more worried about than the tourists, where breakdowns are concerned.