Ipoh-KL High Speed Rail Awaiting Government Finalization

The high-speed rail connecting Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur (KL), which will take just 40 minutes to complete, is awaiting federal government approval.

This may be the nation's first high-speed rail project; it predates the KL-Singapore high-speed rail proposal, which was initially put forth in September 2010 by Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia at the time.

The chairman of the Perak infrastructure, energy, water, and public transport committee, Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, revealed to Sin Chew Daily that a Chinese conglomerate had submitted a proposal.

With a top speed of 280 km/h, the high-speed rail is slower than the 350 km/h Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail, but it will still save a significant amount of time (40 minutes) compared to driving, which could take up to three hours to get from Ipoh to KL.

However, since the high-speed rail will pass through Selangor on its way to KL, the proposal, which is a private financial initiative, will need to obtain permission from both the Transport Ministry and the Selangor government before a feasibility study can be carried out. The proposal has the backing of the state government of Perak.

At the moment, a single journey ticket on the 140 km/h KTM electric train service (ETS) from Ipoh to KL takes two hours and 38 minutes, and costs between RM36 and RM42.

Since then, trains have taken over as the primary means of public transport in Perak, with the Ipoh train station emerging as the nation's second busiest, behind KL Sentral. Over 910,000 passengers passed through the Ipoh station last year. Last year, more than 2.14 million people went to Perak by train.

According to Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook, tickets for additional train services are selling quickly, and ETS tickets to Ipoh are sold out every weekend.