Thursday, October 23, 2008

History of FMSR/MR/KTM From A 3rd Generation Railwayman.

If you want to know more of the history of our railway, then wait for the book (still untitled) written by a third generation Railwayman.

I am referring to my good friend L.A. Vincent better known as Centy to his very close friends. Vincent's grandfather worked in Sentul workshop whilst his father was a Signalman. Vincent's mum too, was from a railway family. Recently retired as General Manager of Multimodal Freight Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of KTM, he decided to put all those memories and a fair amount of research, on paper. There are also some interesting photographs.

I had the opportunity of proof-reading his drafts and I can assure you of a good read if you get hold of a copy of his book when it is released. I'm not including an excerp of his book here as I don't want to spoil your surprise. Get the book.

I wish Vincent the very best and hope to get an authograhed copy soon.

Photo: Celebrating Merdeka 1957 - Vincent is the cute boy standing on the right. His father is in the center (sitting). Guess, that's where he gets his looks.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Bahrin,

That was a nice write-up of my forthcomming book. Actually, publishers are a little bit like primadonnas! They have a lot to say and most think your work would not sell. One said that the book was too much of a niche book to sell well. Others said that there were too many deviations to the story.

One Singapore based publisher said that it was good social history material and he would like to publish it but would prefer the book to be edited by a professional. He gave no guarentees though. I have done that and that too costs money from your own pocket. The edited version is still with the prospective publisher in Singapore. I await his deciosion with some trepidation!

The title that I have chosen is "Signal Right,Line Clear" and is very much a railway title. These are universal rilway terms and any railwayman would easily relate to a phrase like that. The theme is 'life in the railways' seen from the perspective of a working railwayman and as a railway dependant. The book has 23 chapters and runs to about 400 odd pages.

The central character in the book is Centy [not chetty] and the story is told through him.

Like you Bahrin, I too am waiting for it to be published; soon I hope. There are another one or two books that I'd like to pen but why start another book when even this has not seen the insede of a printing press.

Cheers,
Vincent
[apiring writer]
24/10/08

BravoTango said...

Sorry about the nickname, Centy.