Ipoh Railway Station, Perak

Ipoh Railway Station History / Sejarah Stesen Keretapi Ipoh Perak

The first Ipoh station was constructed in 1894 as railway tracks for the Perak Railway (PR) were first laid along Ipoh, serving the town for 20 years through the final years of the PR and its consolidation into the Federated Malay States Railways (FMSR).

In 1914, construction of a second station and hotel to replace the first station began; dogged by material shortages and escalating costs of labour during the Great War, the station was only completed in 1917. The new double-storey station building was constructed with vastly larger space to not only house railway offices, but also Majestic Hotel, an enclose hotel that also boasted a restaurant and a bar.

Originally offering 17 bedrooms which directly grant access to the second floor loggia, the hotel upgraded its number of rooms to 21 in 1936.

For over 80 years, through the operational years of the FMSR and its eventual successor, Malayan Railways, the station’s overall layout has remained largely unchanged since its construction due to minimal upgrading exercises throughout the wider Peninsular Malaysian railway network.

Ipoh Station Square and Ipoh cenotaph

The Ipoh station is fronted by a large square known as the Ipoh Station Square. For much of its early history the square is a lawn sparsely lined with trees; a garden park was eventually built over the site over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, incorporating heavier vegetation, tiled and paved pathways, and a plaza containing sculptures and fountains.

Between 2011 and 2013 the entire square was heavily stripped and rebuilt as an open plaza featuring minimalist terraces, and wider open lawn patches. The reconstructed square is rebranded as the “Ipoh Heritage Square”, serving as the starting point of the Ipoh heritage trail.

Furthermore, the square is also prominent for a cenotaph erected in the centre. Unveiled during the 1927 Armistice Day, the stone brick cenotaph was built to honour men from Perak who have died in the Great War. The cenotaph has subsequently been modified with new plaques to honour fallen soldiers from Perak in World War II, the Malayan Emergency, the Indonesian confrontation and the “Re-insurgency Period”.

As a result of the cenotaph’s location the square has been a long-time local venue for Remembrance Day and Anzac Day. Some earlier plaques have been removed and replaced in an intervening change; the original brass plaque for the Great War dead has been restored although it is reinstalled on a different side of the cenotaph while several decorative brass parts have remained missing; to counter further vandalism the brass plaque has been covered with protective plastic shielding.

A more recent addition is a memorial plaque that pays tribute to combatant and non-combatant prisoners of war who died building the Thailand–Burma Railway.

The cenotaph, along with a matured Ipoh tree planted in 1980, are some of the few elements of the Ipoh Station Square that were preserved during the 2011—2013 rebuild.