In days gone by, many would have made long-distance rail travels. Some were going back to boarding schools, other to collage campuses and some were part of the crazy balek kampong rides. In crowded trains, we just stood at the coaches open-end balconies, smoking or telling tales.

My earliest train-trip memory was just at KL station, sitting in the coach, wondering where everyone was bound for when the coach window decided to drop on my hand! As the years went by, I accumulated more and more railway memories.

For a railway child, there was romance in all-things railway: the people and their behaviour, the language and the games played. Along the way, many railways anecdotes dropped onto my lap. Not many know that our passenger trains had some petty glamorous names. There was the Sappo Express, PnO Mail, Northen Star, Southern Cross, Tren Sombong and Sodthy Express. A lively discussion will ensue when asked where the best food cam from on train travels. Was it from the breakdown train's kitchen ot the mail train's buffet car? And there were scores of other railway stories from my years as a railway-man.