Taking the train is the safe, comfortable & amazingly cheap way to travel overland between Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang & Bangkok. It's a real experience, unlike flying, and relaxing on a train on the traditional colonial single-track railway past palm plantations and little country stations is far nicer than using a bus on an ugly & depressing modern motorway.
From 1 July 2011 you now leave from Woodlands Train Checkpoint in the north of Singapore Island, rumbling slowly over the famous 1923-built causeway across the Johor Strait into Malaysia and through the palm plantations and jungle towards Kuala Lumpur.
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur takes 6 hours by leisurely daytime train or 8 hours on a time-effective overnight sleeper, from just £7 or $10 one-way. Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth (the station for the ferry to Penang) is of a similar length & cost;
Butterworth to Bangkok on the daily 'International Express' costs around £23 or $34 and takes less than 24 hours with a comfy sleeper & a restaurant car for dinner & breakfast, see the pictures here. The whole 1,233 mile Singapore to Bangkok journey can be done in just 48 hours including an afternoon in KL and a morning in Penang, but by all means stop off for longer in Kuala Lumpur or Penang.
Where you go is up to you... Here are the train schedules for the main line linking Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang & Bangkok. Feel free to take any train on any date between any two stations, it's up to you. All these trains run every day. Trains in Malaysia & Thailand run on metre-gauge track, narrower than European standard gauge. How much does it cost? How to buy tickets.
Singapore to Bangkok by train: The whole train journey from Singapore to Bangkok is 1,920 km or 1,233 miles and involves two or three trains, depending on where you want to stop off.
Look at the timetable below. For a fast journey with no stopover in KL and just a morning in Penang, you'd take train 12 Singapore to KL, train 22 KL to Butterworth (Penang) then train 36 Butterworth to Bangkok.
Or for an afternoon stopover in KL, a morning stopover in Penang, you'd take train 2 to KL, then train 22 KL to Butterworth, then train 36 Butterworth to Bangkok.
However, I'd recommend stopping at Kuala Lumpur and Penang for a bit longer as they are both fascinating cities. So take any train you like from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, either one of the daytime trains (train 2 or 12) or the overnight sleeper train (train 24).
Stop over for a day or two, then take any train you like from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth (the station for the ferry shuttle to Penang), there's a choice of two daytime trains (trains 10 or 2) or an overnight sleeper (train 22).
Finally, take a comfy sleeper on train 36, the 'International Express' leaving Butterworth at lunchtime and arriving in Bangkok next morning. It's entirely up to you whether you travel from Singapore to Bangkok all in one go in 48 hours or stop off and see places on the way, as each train is booked & ticketed separately.
All 3 trains can be booked at any railway station in Malaysia or Singapore or by email with Malaysian Railways.
It's really not difficult to read this timetable! Each column is a separate train, and you read downwards. You can buy tickets for any train, between any two stations.
So for example, in the second column you see that train number 2, with 1st & 2nd class seats, running daily, leaves Singapore Woodlands at 08:45, stops at Johor Bahru, Gemas, Tampin, calls at Kuala Lumpur at 14:56, calls at Ipoh and finally arrives at Butterworth (for Penang) at 21:20.
You could change trains at KL onto train 20 to Hat Yai. Or you could stay on board till Butterworth, stay overnight and catch train 36 to Bangkok next day. It's up to you...
TICKET
There is no such thing as a Singapore to Bangkok ticket. The cost of a Singapore to Bangkok train journey is the sum of the fares for each train you take, Singapore to KL, KL to Butterworth, Butterworth to Bangkok
Traveller's reports...
Traveller Sheena Clowes reports from regular journeys between Singapore, KL, Penang and Bangkok:
I am an older lady who loves to travel alone and overland, so here are some recent pointers for added comfort for these journeys which I have made many times over the past few years, most recently today from Butterworth-Bangkok.
First of all, the International Express (Butterworth-Penang) is late both leaving and arriving around 20% of the time. Be prepared for it, not stressed by it. For instance, it left yesterday at 15.45 instead of 14.20, and arrived in Bangkok at just before 2pm today.
But even with my delaying for a cup of good coffee at the station in Bangkok, I was checking into my hotel at 2.45pm - I wouldn't be checking into a city-center hotel 45 minutes after landing at Bangkok international airport, would I!?
Take some water and a light snack - biscuits, maybe - for the first few hours of the International Express when there is no restaurant car. If you forget, you can get food at the bus station just a short distance from the train station, or if you are coming from Georgetown, at the stalls at the jetty there.
The International Ekspress carries local passengers without reservations between the first station after Butterworth to the last station before Thailand, so don't spread your belongings out too much, you will end up with them all on your lap soon enough!
There is also usually hot drinking water available at the end of the 2nd class sleeper for making tea, instant noodles, re-heating baby food etc. In the center of these coaches there is an electricity point where you can recharge your phone.
Make friends with the people sitting there, to keep an eye on it, and only take as long as you need (it doesn't need to be fully charged for a quick phone call) as other people need to charge their phones, too.
The lower berth on the International Express 2nd class sleepers offers an unprecedented (in my experience) amount of space as it is a full metre wide. The size of the berth, and the way the curtains hang around them, and their length, means that even an arthritic old woman like me can change clothes in privacy and rearrange her overnight case.
If you like to read in bed, take a book-light or head torch, and that if you need pitch darkness for sleeping, take some sort of eye shade. You only get one pillow per berth, so fold up some soft clothing if you like your head higher.
The cotton blanket that you are issued with is freshly-laundered and I find gives just the right degree of cosiness when wearing a T-shirt and cotton trousers. Some people are too cold - the air-conditioning is fairly fierce - and need to put on more clothes to keep warm!
If you don't want an Asian breakfast or a rather strange Western breakfast, you can just buy a cup of coffee for 30 baht. It's instant but good and hot and strong, just the ticket with a couple of Malaysian "breakfast biscuits" and a carton of Yogurt you bought the previous day in Butterworth or Georgetown.
The food offered by the "Bogie Restaurant" (orders taken after crossing the border; dinner is served after Hat Yai and breakfast at whatever reasonable hour people are getting up) is generally very good if you like Thai food.
The restlessness of the southern provinces of Thailand is evidenced by the armed guards on the train overnight and a policeman patrols the sleeper coaches randomly through the night - in stocking feet! However, I have never been aware of any problems in the border areas while I have been traveling.
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