Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) will commence its Electric Train Service (ETS) from Ipoh to Padang Besar, extending the existing service which currently plies from KL Sentral to Ipoh.
There will be two services to be introduced, with two directions each:
Ipoh – Butterworth
Butterworth – Ipoh
Butterworth – Padang Besar
Padang Besar – Butterworth
There is only a limited schedule available and no news yet about addition of more service.
Timetables will be posted soon.
Some sources said KTMB will use Class 91 trains, currently being used for ETS between KL Sentral and Ipoh.
The newer rolling stock is not announced yet by KTMB. They are manufactured by CSR ZhuZhou from China and able to reach speeds up to 160 km/h. In comparison, KTMB Class 91 ETS trainset can only reach 140 km/h.
Dear visitors, we would like to inform you that all schedules for KTM Intercity, ETS and Komuter Sektor Utara has been updated on myjadual.com. Therefore, you can expect to see the updated 2018 KTMB schedule on the website, which is in both English and Malay languages.
MYJadual is the website for you to check public transport schedules. Currently, MYJadual has train schedules for KTM ETS, KTM Intercity, KTM Komuter, KLIA Transit, KLIA Ekspres, RapidKL Bus, RapidKL Ampang / Sri Petaling Line, RapidKL Kelana Jaya Line and KL Monorail.
Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) will commence its Electric Train Service (ETS) from Ipoh to Padang Besar, extending the existing service which currently plies from KL Sentral to Ipoh.
There will be two services to be introduced, with two directions each:
Ipoh – Butterworth
Butterworth – Ipoh
Butterworth – Padang Besar
Padang Besar – Butterworth
There is only a limited schedule available and no news yet about addition of more service.
Timetables will be posted soon.
Some sources said KTMB will use Class 91 trains, currently being used for ETS between KL Sentral and Ipoh.
The newer rolling stock is not announced yet by KTMB. They are manufactured by CSR ZhuZhou from China and able to reach speeds up to 160 km/h. In comparison, KTMB Class 91 ETS trainset can only reach 140 km/h.
Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) is just waiting for confirmation from Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat (SPAD) regarding the new intercity train service linking Ipoh to Padang Besar. The new service, also dubbed as Electric Train Service (ETS), will enable travelers to experience speed of up to 140 km/h during travel between Ipoh and Padang Besar.
The new ETS service will stop and prominent stations such as Butterworth, Alor Setar, Arau and Padang Besar. The fast journey is made possible by the recent completion of electrified double tracking (EDTP) project, which upgraded the rail infrastructure between Ipoh to Padang Besar from single rail to double rail. The upgrade enables fast train travel on both northbound and southbound direction, reducing delays greatly.
As of press time, KTMB has yet to release any pricing information regarding the ETS service.
We will update this site as soon as we get more information about the service.
KTM Berhad has rescheduled the train timetable for all KTM Intercity services. Listed below are the services affected:
No. 29: Tumpat – KL Sentral: Departure time rescheduled to 6:30 PM from Tumpat station
No. 83: Tumpat – Gua Musang: Departure time rescheduled to 2:30 PM from Tumpat
No. 84: Gua Musang – Tumpat: Departure time rescheduled to 6:00 PM from Gua Musang
No. 81: Tumpat – Kuala Lipis: The route changed from Tumpat to Gua Musang only
No. 82: Kuala Lipis – Tumpat: The route changed from Gua Musang to Tumpat only
No. 85: Tumpat – Kuala Lipis: TERMINATED
No. 86: Kuala Lipis – Tumpat: TERMINATED
No. 91: Tumpat – Woodlands: ROUTE CHANGE from Gemas to Woodlands only. NUMBER CHANGE from 91 to 61
No. 92: Woodlands – Tumpat: ROUTE CHANGE from Woodlands to Gemas only, NUMBER CHANGE from 91 to 62.
The change is due to partial closure of the route Gemas – Gua Musang as enforced by Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) starting from July 12th 2014. Please contact KTMB for further inquiries.
Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) has released a set of new schedules for ETS, effective October 1st 2013. The move is necessary in order to ensure KTMB can provide better service to the customers. The frequency of ETS trains are changed to fit the user’s needs better. you can read more froma news article by Bernama here.
With the completion of electrified double track railways, we do hope that the government will assist KTMB further in rolling stock procurement because we don’t see the point of having state-of-the-art railway system without making use to its full potential.
October 12th 2013 Update: We have updated our ETS Schedule.
About ETS: KTM ETS (Electric Train Service) is a relatively new train service from KTMB. The first commercial run was done on August 12th 2010, after several times of postponement. For the time being, ETS plies the route between Ipoh and Seremban.
Recently, I came across an article in The Star complaining about food service quality onboard ETS train. According to the author, one of the crew members responded rudely when he was asked about the food. Apart from rudeness, complaints can also be seen about unavailability of staff to take care of the orders placed at Food and Beverage counter in ETS’ Food & Beverage coach.
As a service provider with dedicated coach for food and beverage service, KTM Berhad should look into this problem seriously. While there are currently many KTMB staff who can behave appropriately and responded timely with customers’ complaints, there are also some of the ‘rotten eggs’ who smear the overall image of KTM Berhad.
The article mentioned above is about six months old (as of June 2013) but we are hoping that KTM Berhad has conducted a thorough investigation about this problem and rectified it in whichever way necessary. This is important to ensure customer satisfaction is taken up to a higher level.
ETS service is a prime choice of commuters traveling between Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. If the service quality (in terms of staff and on-time performance) can be improved, quite a number of people would not mind paying extra compared to public bus as long as they can have a comfortable ride between Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.
We are hoping that KTM Berhad will continue to look into ways to improve ETS service because it has clear advantage over bus service, which is the ability to circumvent through traffic jams (they use railroads!)
After living next to the country’s first railroad network for about 100 years, a number of Kuala Sepetang families can live better life with less worry as KTM Berhad has agreed to transfer the land ownership to them.
Initially, KTM Berhad asked the state government a RM35 million ringgit payment in return. However, after negotiations with state government, they have agreed only to transfer the land to the villages without anything in return.
KTM Berhad has a lot of underutilized land asset in Malaysia. We hope that KTM continues to try their best to ensure the plots of land are being used at their maximum potential, yielding more revenue for KTM. The added revenue can further be used for proper maintenance of trains and also buying new trains. Throughout the years we can see how the lack of adequate fleet of trains has hurt KTM Berhad operation efficiency. Therefore it is hoped that KTM Berhad tries its best to ensure best customer experience for its customers..
Source: The Star – KTM land given to Kuala Sepetang folk, published on May 4th 2013 [link]
Kit Siang’s attitude (via a post published on his official blog) towards Malaysian Electrified Double Tracking Project (EDTP) is skeptical. According to the post, it is not justifiable to spend about RM 9 billion on the project simply because our trains run on meter gauge rails and cannot move as fast as the ones on standard gauge rails.
His argument on inability of trains to move fast along meter gauge is flawed. He might forget about the terrain nature of Malaysia which prohibits the usage of standard gauge rails, especially around hilly areas. He might also overlooked the fact that turning the whole inter-city railroad service from narrow gauge to standard gauge is extremely expensive, especially this will also include the exorbitant cost of modifying, if not replacing our current narrow-gauge rolling stock.
He might also forget the fact that our trains also run through the border to Thailand, which also uses meter gauge. Changing to standard gauge will adversely affect our freight services, which accounts a significant portion of revenue to our national railway company, Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) [2]. Of note, meter gauge has been here for a long time and it is a de facto standard for Southeast Asia railway network. Decision to change our railroad system (which is currently connected to neighboring countries) cannot be made single-handedly. Easier said than done.
The standard-gauge-run Acela Express, the only high-speed train service in the United States has an awesome top speed, which stands at 240 km/h. However, its average speed is only at 110 km/h due to local regulations in some stretches of its route and also due to geographical and infrastructure limitations. High speed trains are possible if the railroads are made away from general population due to high noise produced. Given our current layout, which often crosses cities and villages, it is not feasible to have such a high speed rail network as an alternative to EDTP.
Malaysia is paving its way towards better railroad service. With the introduction of double-tracked railway between Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur, a new KTM service called ETS (Electric Train Services) was introduced, offering a premium service with comfy fleet of trains with various amenities. The service might not be as perfect as the ones offered in some other countries but we need to be aware that we are paving our way towards betterment. ETS has top speed of 140 km/h and offers only two-hour journey between Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh (non-stop). This is actually faster than cars (did I mention it is safer?).
Let us not forget that we HAVE ALREADY BEEN USING STANDARD GAUGE in our newer rail systems, such as LRT (both Ampang and Kelana Jaya Line) and KLIA Ekspres. The reason why we stick to meter gauge for inter-city rail system is due to the integration of our freight and passenger services to neighboring countries. Therefore, we can see that the current administration is able to realize the benefits of having standard gauge railways for speed and stability.
The EDTP project might have its flaws but by simply complaining without even care to seek solution is worse. Reading their comments about. This is most probably not written by Kit Siang but I write this response because the post resembles his viewpoint, unless he states otherwise. The current government is not perfect at all but that does not indicate everything they are doing is wrong. Consider doing some homework before complaining (and not giving specific solutions).
Footnotes
Inter-city rail service in Malaysia uses 1-meter long narrow gauge while most other parts in the world
KTM Berhad depends a lot on freight services to ensure its sustainability in business. KTM Intercity service is best known for their extremely cheap rates. This does not simply happen because KTM is generous. It is a company. It spends money on maintaining trains and stations and it needs every cent of them, be it from government’s initiative or fare collection from its users. Since the fare system barely gives them profit, they need KTM Freight to survive.
