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The Tranvia: Part and Parcel of Malabon's Proud History

The Manila-Malabon railway, inaugurated in 1888, was the first steam-powered streetcar line in the Philippines and connected the towns of Malabon and Tondo. It had four locomotives and eight passenger coaches and made stops in Maypajo, Dulo, and Tondo. The Malabon station was located under an acacia tree in front of San Bartolome Church. According to eyewitnesses, by the 1930s-1940s the line was electrified and stopped in communities like Maypajo, Gagalangin, Lawton, and San Marcelino, before being destroyed during World War 2 bombing in 1945.

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Rosie Florante
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270 views4 pages

The Tranvia: Part and Parcel of Malabon's Proud History

The Manila-Malabon railway, inaugurated in 1888, was the first steam-powered streetcar line in the Philippines and connected the towns of Malabon and Tondo. It had four locomotives and eight passenger coaches and made stops in Maypajo, Dulo, and Tondo. The Malabon station was located under an acacia tree in front of San Bartolome Church. According to eyewitnesses, by the 1930s-1940s the line was electrified and stopped in communities like Maypajo, Gagalangin, Lawton, and San Marcelino, before being destroyed during World War 2 bombing in 1945.

Uploaded by

Rosie Florante
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Tranvia: part and parcel of Malabon's proud history

LEAFING THROUGH THE PAGES OF MALABON'S HISTORY shows us


the town's importance during the Spanish era.  Not only did the Spaniards build
San Bartolome Church in Malabon, considered "probably the only church of its
kind in the whole Philippines, and probably the highest and biggest among all,
including the Manila Cathedral;"  the first railway, the Manila-Malabon railway,
was also built there.

Up to the early 1880s, different types of horse-drawn carriages -- carreton,


calesa, carruaje, carromata -- served as the Filipinos' means of transportation.

In 1878 Leon Monssour, an official of the colony's Department of Public


Works, submitted a proposal to Madrid for a streetcar system.  The envisioned
system was to be a five-line network emanating from Plaza San Gabriel in
Binondo, running to Intramuros, Malate, Malacanang, Sampaloc and Tondo.

Spain approved his proposal, but it was only in 1882 when businessman
Jacobo Zobel de Zangroniz, Spanish engineer Luciano M. Bremon, and Madrid
banker Adolfo Bayo formed La Compania de Tranvias de Filipinas to operate
the concession granted by the government.
THE MANILA-MALABON LINE

The Malacanang line was not built as planned and was replaced instead by the
Malabon line.  Consisting of four German-made locomotives and eight nine-
passenger coaches, the Manila-Malabon railway was the first to be finished of
the five lines and it was inaugurated on October 20, 1888.  All five lines were
constructed between 1885 and 1889.

The other four lines were horsedrawn.


But the Malabon line ran on steam, making Malabon the first to have a steam-
powered streetcar in the Philippines.

The rail line served Malabon, which was already prosperous because of its cigar-
making factories, bangus culture and a large sugar mill owned and managed by
British businessmen.

The Manila-Malabon line was approximately seven kilometers. Tondo, then the
country's commercial capital, was the end of the line.  There were two other
transfer points - Maypajo (in Caloocan) and Dulo, at the north end of that
community.  The Tondo terminal was a simple two-story wooden structure with
the first floor serving as waiting area, while the Malabon end was located at the
roadside under an acacia tree where the conductor sold tickets.

According to Isabelo de los Reyes (1864-1938), writer, civic leader and senator,
service originated from Tondo at 5:30 a.m. and ended at 7:30 p.m.

Trips from Malabon, on the other hand, were from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.,
every hour on the hour in the mornings and every half hour beginning 1:30 p.m
in the afternoons if there were many passengers.
According to our Tita Soledad, in the late 1930s to early 1940s she and my
husband's mother Ofelia and aunt Gwen used to take the tranvia from San
Bartolome going to Maryknoll College, which was then located at Isaac Peral
(now UN Avenue).  By that time, all the tranvias ran on electric power and some
of the stations along the route they used to take going to Maryknoll included
Maypajo, Gagalangin, Lawton and San Marcelino.

The Malabon station was located right in front of San Bartolome Church,
and it must have been the "Dulo" station referred to during the Spanish era.  Tita
Soledad recalls that the tranvia got destroyed in 1945 when the American
liberation forces were forced to bomb south of the Pasig River where the
Japanese holed themselves up for a last-ditch stand.

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