In this book, the reader is swept into a time when the country was still Malaya and under British rule. It is a what-if story: what if the Federated Malay States Railways – back in the 1920s – had extended its railway line from Batang Berjuntai (Bestari Jaya) across the Selangor River to Teluk Anson (Teluk Intan)?
In the rich imagination of an ex-railwayman, that fictitious corridor – an idea the FMSR conceived but never implemented – comes alive, crossing the states of Selangor and Perak. Thus, the Persel (Perak-Selangor) line on which the exclusive-looking Bernam Mail runs.
Vincent, also the author of Walk Along The Tracks (2010) and Fourteen Miles to Berjuntai (2016), has created an ‘alternate history’, combining actual developments in the area and elsewhere with historical events to weave an engaging tale of the romance of life along the track with all its settlements, stations and halts, and the commercial and rural development that only the coming of a railway would have spurred.
