Detour

TRAVEL WATCH Do-It-Yourself Luxury on Thailand's Railways The romance of rail travel is alive and well in Southeast Asia. Detour Visitors to Kota Kinabalu can take a trip back to colonial times on the newly refurbished North Borneo Railway Web Crawling Depots for sites providing information on passenger rail travel throughout Asia and Russia

Visitors to Kota Kinabalu, capital of the state of Sabah in eastern Malaysia, can take a trip back to colonial times on the newly refurbished North Borneo Railway. The train's star attraction is the stately, 81-ton Vulcan 15, built in 1954 and one of the world's few surviving steam engines.

The Vulcan pulls up to six carriages, lovingly reproduced in vintage décor from materials that would have been available in 1896 when the railway was launched to haul timber from the jungles of Sabah for export to England. Sabah at the time had become a playground for young, mostly British adventurers who faced tropical diseases like malaria and the occasional headhunter in the thick rainforests.

The train departs twice weekly, on Wednesday and Saturday at 11:30 a.m., from Kota Kinabalu's Tanjung Aru station, not far from the airport. From there, the behemoth chugs south alongside the freeway until it turns off into the jungle, offering views of pristine mangrove swamps filled with egrets and herons, traditional kampongs, beaches and stretches of lush, green paddy fields.

A mere 33 km from Kota Kinabalu, passengers disembark in Papar, a small, forgotten town. While there isn't much to buy, the market is a sensual feast of fresh-cut flowers, exotic fruit and interesting characters. Special arrangements can be made to take the North Borneo Railway further afield, as far as Beaufort and even on the spectacular run over the Padas River to Tenom. On the return trip to Kota Kinabalu, a light snack is served in period-style stacking tiffin boxes, and the visuals outside the train are replayed in reverse.

By Julie Gaw