Penang Hill Railway Upgrade

Penang Hill Railway Upgrade – Penang Hill is one of Penang island’s featured attractions. The Penang Hill Railway is one of the country’s most valuable heritage assets as it is the only one of its kind left in Asia. It was constructed way back in 1923 by Arnold R Johnson, who had studied funiculars in Switzerland.

Lately the railway had been experiencing some failure but the line received a RM60 mil from federal government for upgrading. Currently the 82 years old system can only take 60 people each trip and passengers have to disembark at the middle station to take another funicular up the hill. The new system expected to transport up to 80 people per trip in about 10 minutes non-stop.

The Penang Hill Railway service will be stop from 22th Feb 2010 for the upgrading works.  During the closure, jeep would be used to travel up until the project was completed on July 2010.