Public Transport.

The other long-withstanding hobby I had is my passion for public transport. Specifically, buses.

When I used to frequent my grandparent’s flat at Ang Mo Kio, we always took trains to Toa Payoh or Novena to shop. No, not Orchard as it was too expensive at that point of time.

But ever since we stopped staying over there, we had to take buses to go anywhere since the part of Hougang we live in are nowhere near any train stations.

I gathered more interest in buses, since they are more different models or variations of them, and generally they excite me more from how much different each ride would be. My favourite bus models are the articulated buses (bendies), and taking them on Service 960 from Woodlands to the city center always made my day.

However, the hobby has always been ostracised as being “unconventional” and shamed upon by the general public here. All the boomers here are extremely conservative and makes lots of mean or straight up derogatory comments against people like us who wants to pursue our own hobby, in our own space. I will admit there were instances where people cross the line from being a hobbyist to being a straight up public nuisance, but those instances are far and few between, or just from the black sheeps of the community. They are absolutely not representative of the majority of the hobbyists, but damage is already done.

Singapore’s extreme take on security also makes it hard for people like us to carry out our hobby, even simple things like taking photos of buses at bus interchanges can attract the attention of Police, even despite being a public place (really?). I understand it’s all in the name of security, but with such inconsistent enforcement between places and the mixed messages you’ve shown to public, it makes the hobby extremely inconducive. Even bus drivers were reported to have been aggressive to us taking photos of the buses for fear of being complained of doing…something?

I gave up on being a hard-nut on it and only take photos during certain events or major deployments, or the debut of certain bus models. The bus scene has gone extremely bland and I missed the vibrant and exciting buses we used to have.

On the right and below are some photos of buses I’ve took in Singapore, but if you would like to view my entire gallery you can always visit my Flickr.

Right column (top to bottom):
Mercedes-Benz O405G (Hispano Habit), Mercedes-Benz Citaro C2 Hybrid.

Bottom row (left to right):
MAN A24 (Lion’s City), Alexander Dennis E500 Facelift (3-door), Volvo B9TL (CDGE).