The Melaka Monorail in its first days, October 2010, by Kurosagi7, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

A small monorail was meant to carry tourists above the Melaka River. It broke down hours after it opened, ran on and off for a decade, and has stood still since March 2020. The concrete beam is still there, curving past apartment blocks and the water.

It opened on 21 October 2010; the photo above dates from those first days, with the carriage on the beam and people strolling the riverside below. A few hours after the opening it stopped. According to Malay Wikipedia and The Rakyat Post, the train halted with 20 passengers aboard, roughly 100 metres short of the station, and rescuers had to get them down. It was an early sign of a pattern: Careta reports 22 service interruptions in 2011 alone, including two British tourists stuck on board.

The line was built as a tourist ride, a straddle-beam loop running clockwise along the Melaka River. The first phase, 1.6 km from Taman Rempah to Hang Tuah station, cost about RM16 million, and the full loop is given as 2.5 km (sources vary). It had three stations: Tun Ali, Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat. Service was suspended in 2013, and it reopened on 4 December 2017 with one 15-seat coach running from Tun Ali alone. Reports say it drew more than 17,000 riders in its first two months before trouble returned.

It stopped in March 2020, when Malaysia’s first movement control order began, and never restarted, with money problems cited. In September 2021 the state ended the contract of the operator, Monorail Theme Park & Studios Sdn Bhd. The grounds, per The Sun, included failing to pay a RM100,000 commitment fee and a share of profits, adding an unauthorised clause on developing 15 lots of land around the station, and safety lapses such as exposed cables and a dysfunctional door lock.

Nothing has replaced it. A 2023 revival announcement came to nothing, and in November 2024 the city mayor said the track would not be demolished but turned into a lit walking route past Kampung Morten, with work due to start in 2025. I found no report that it has begun. A 2024 visitor’s account says Hang Tuah station had been demolished just before the visit, so the layout is changing. Atlas Obscura says a carriage still sits outside and the main office still holds leaflets; news reports from 2021 and 2023 do describe two idle carriages at Tun Ali station, but I could not confirm the leaflets.

To see it, walk the public riverside and the Jalan Tun Ali and Kampung Morten streets and look up. Atlas Obscura says the outer areas are unfenced. That does not make the stations, offices or the track open. They are closed and have gone years without maintenance, so keep to public ground and do not go inside.