Exploring abandoned things is always fun. One of the most niche and interesting ones that I’ve come across is the former monorail system in Melaka (or Malacca) in Malaysia.

We have our fair share of abandoned monorails here in Australia.

Sydney stopped using theirs in 2013. This left two monorail systems on the Gold Coast as the only ones operating until they too closed in 2017 and 2022.

I won’t get into the detail about monorails but suffice to say that they are a niche technology that can only really be justified as an option in very few specific circumstances.

Monorails in Malaysia

Malaysia has a fairly long history with monorails as a form of transport.

The first one as a public transport service was built in 2000 in Sunway, a suburban centre of Kuala Lumpur (an earlier one was built in 1994 at a theme park in Genting Highlands). This had come off a resurgence of interest in this futuristic technology in the 1990s, which was already part of a global fad at the time. Monorails were seen as the next step of public transport and many proposals to build networks sprang up.

Several others were built in the 2000s in Malaysia but only some survive today. The best used (and probably the most useful one) is the Kuala Lumpur Monorail. It runs along 8.6 kilometres connecting several busy locations, including MRT stations and Bukit Bintang, and subsequently sees decent patronage.

The rise and fall of Melaka’s monorail

I won’t claim to be an expert on domestic Malaysian affairs. But it seems that politics was at least part of the reason why Melaka considered a monorail after the issues already suffered by other systems in the country. Governments around the world have fallen and continue to fall for gadgetbahns – unproven or unnecessary technology often promoted as ‘solving’ a transport issue.

In this case the Melaka Monorail appears to have been linked to the development of ‘The Shore’ a large shopping, commercial and residential complex on the banks of the Melaka River that also houses the city’s tallest building. The shopping area opened in 2015. It was also coupled with the ‘Monorail Themepark & Studios’ complex.

Construction of the monorail began in 2008. It was finished in 2010 for a cost of RM16.5 million (about AU$5 million) for 1.6 kilometres of track and three stations.

It officially opened on 21 October 2010 to great fanfare. But it suffered the first of many technical problems when one of the vehicles suddenly stopped, trapping its 20 passengers inside.

The system was then shut down as repairs were effected. It reopened for limited service later that year but closed again in November after a key system was found to be faulty.

It continued this see-saw for a long time. It would be closed for repairs and then reopen before breaking down again and again.

It was closed entirely in 2013 before it reopened in December 2017 with a service operating between 10am and 10pm on weekdays and until 12am on weekends. It only operated one vehicle at a time with a frequency of every 30 minutes over a distance of just 1.6 kilometres. Not a very usable system.

At the time, the official projection was that it would bring in revenue of RM1.2 million per year. With a ticket price set at RM10 (although it did increase significantly in later years), this would require annual patronage of 120,000 people. Unfortunately for the monorail, it never came close to that.

It was not set up for success from the beginning and was criticised heavily throughout its short life, including by transport experts and locals.

The main issue was that it was a meandering loop that lacked any kind of connection to significant trip generators. It was also slow and did not provide much of an attraction for tourists wanting to see the Melaka River – other than perhaps the pure novelty of being on a monorail.

It continued to operate right up until 2020 when it stopped running due to the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Then in 2021 the operator’s contract was cancelled by the Melaka State Government.

What is left behind

Since then it has laid dormant with most of the infrastructure still there. I went on a walk up the Melaka River (which is very nice by the way) specifically to see what was left.

I was surprised to see just how much has been left behind. The entire track is still there, snaking its way between trees and buildings.

The impressive bridge over the river lies just south of the Persisiran Bunga Raya Road Bridge.

Unfortunately the Hang Tuah Station was demolished just before I arrived. So all that greeted me here was an empty lot with fresh dirt.

Around the back next to the river though I did find some old electrical equipment and what looked like a trackside signal.

I had intended to continue walking up to the monorail depot. But by that point the 100% humidity and 30+ degree afternoon temperatures did not exactly encourage me to continue.

By all accounts though the depot is still there. I’m unsure what happened to the vehicles though.

Other notes

The Shore Complex looked pretty dead when I visited earlier this year. Lots of shops seemed to be empty and there were not many people around. From some research on this topic, it appears to not be doing very well – at least from 2017.

Transit Malaysia also seem like they are doing good work advocating for better public transport in Melaka and elsewhere. The Melaka Monorail is cited as a cautionary tale. I’d recommend checking out their website here.

If you want to see some footage of the monorail when it was in operation, see these links below:

• Promotional video from 2018
• Some board footage of the route (including what sounds like really annoying advertising music)
• Urbex video of the abandoned infrastructure

Finally, earlier this year someone decided to use the abandoned track as running path and did a full circuit of the system. Quite an achievement as those tracks are pretty high!