Location and locality
The station is located in Kampung Changkat Dermawan, not very close to Tapah Road town in the Batang Padang district, Perak. While Tapah Road sounds synonymous with Tapah, Tapah Road town is actually a small town located ten kilometres west from Tapah town. The town and the station is accessible from the junction from Route A10 Tapah Road which connects Tanjung Keramat at Federal Route 70 (Changkat Jong-Kampar, near Langkap town and accessible to Teluk Intan) to Tapah town at Federal Route 1. Not far from the town, the Tapah campus of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) is located there, accessible from the same route.
The station mainly not only serve Tapah Road and the main Tapah town, but also surrounding other towns like Langkap and Ayer Kuning as well as places around Tapah town. Due to accessibility and historical reasons, this station also serves passengers that comes as far as Teluk Intan, Kampung Gajah and even Cameron Highlands.
Some notable areas nearby is recreational areas of Kuala Woh, Lata Iskandar and Lata Kinjang as well as educational institutes like Tapah Science School (Sekolah Menengah Sains Tapah), a high-performing boarding school.
History
Built in between 1880 and 1885, the original station is among the oldest of the railway stations in Malaysia. On 18 May 1893, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith officiated the launch of the Tapah Road railway station. This station was originally part of the Perak Railway network, which was built to serve the Kinta Valley region and Telok Anson (now Teluk Intan), primarily for transporting tin from the mines.
In 1901, Perak Railways merged with Selangor Railways to form what was later known as Federated Malay State Railways (FMSR), and the station has been connected with the Selangor networks to form a mainline that goes southeast via Sungkai to Tanjung Malim. The 27 km-long track that goes southwest to Teluk Anson and Telok Anson Wharf is later effectively made a branch line and Tapah Road hence known as a junction station where the train services between these lines meets.
The station continued to serve both lines until the Teluk Intan branch line was discontinued in the 1990s. Since then, Tapah Road remained a major station for mainline Intercity express and local trains. However, these services eventually ceased when KTMB discontinued many Intercity services along electrified routes.
In March 2007, as part of the electrified double tracking project between Rawang and Ipoh, the station was rebuilt, with the original building preserved. It later became part of the ETS pilot service between Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur, with both Gold and Silver services stopping at the station. When electrified services were extended to the northern states up to Butterworth and Padang Besar, the station was also included as a stop for northbound trains, including those on the Platinum service.
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Tapah Road
| Inter-city rail station
