Rail Corridor Trail - Central

Hailed as one of the best trails in Singapore by timeout.com, Rail Corridor trail is a trail built on the obsolete railroad connecting central Singapore (Tanjong Pagar) to its northern border to Malaysia at Woodlands. The total length of the corridor is 24 km. The trail's northern portion is still under construction.  Current Rail Corridor trail is 13km long, northern trailhead is located at Hillview road near Railway mall, and southern trailhead is at Tanjong Pagar Railway station. 

Today we went to hike on Rail Corridor trail, and found that the exact current northern trailhead is Upper Bukit Timah Truss Bridge, which is near Rail mall.

upper Bukit Timah truss bridge

The trail was pretty busy when we started hiking around 10am, which was late for a morning hike. 

It took no time for us to see that the rail corridor trail had no rail rack, except that at the truss bridge, none to the south of the bridge. For the rail corridor central section we hiked, there are 4 short tracks, at trailhead, at railway bridge Hindhede Crossing, the third, and best preserved, at Bukit Timah truss bridge, and at the old Bukit Timah Railway station, 

many people hike and bike on this trail in the morning

Bukit Timah truss bridge with rail track on rail corridor trail

railway bridge at Hindhede Crossing

The trail is well paved, lush green at both sides, tall trees, small bushes, high grasses. The area is a great habitat for birds. 

banana tree

We heard many bird chirpings, but only saw mynas, oriental magpie robins, and occasionally long tailed parakeets flying overhead. I heard some new chirps, but could not see the birds due to the tall and dense trees. We did see a couple other birds, we saw before, lineated barbet, and yellow vented bulbul, by chance, when they flew across the trail in front of our eyes, and landed in a tree or a plant.

This yellow vented bulbul was about to pursue a mate

Can you the lineated barbet? pin beak, greyish head and green wings

another  view of the lineated barbet

We turned around at the intersection of the corridor and Bukit Timah diversion canal. The trail is on the dam like object in the middle of the following picture. 

Intersection of the Corridor and Canal

We finished the 9km hike in two and half hours and had lunch a Springleaf Prata Place, Indian food, steps away from the northern trailhead - The food was delicious!

The trail is good, and could be a good place for longer distance run practice, up to 26 km (13x2), in future.

The Indian Restaurant - Springleaf Prata Place