According to the Sabah State Railway Department Operation Officer,Awang Zainudin Awang Matusin,"It is not due to lack of maintenance but due to a problematic stretch that cause the wheel to be dislodged. It is like that." Whatever he meant?
Not long ago another mishap involving the railway system when a car driven by a Hong Kong tourist was slammed by a train, the driver was killed.
This raised a question,whether it would be better for the Sabahans life safety to discontinue the Sabah railway system?
The train only carry passengers between Tg Aru and Beaufort twice a day.The loads are minimal, for instant there were only 80 passengers when the incident happened. Two buses would be enough to carry these numbers of passengers already.Beaufort can be reached by buses and taxi conveniently on tarred roads nowadays,no need to travel by train.
Compared with West Malaysia, where the loads are very heavy, comprising heavy goods and huge numbers of passengers, they have fewer mishaps.They have train services day and night with short intervals but seldom have accidents. Sabah Railway Department really have to learn from them, or simply scrap the service, for the sake of ordinary people's safety.
