How to travel from Padang Besar to Kuala Lumpur by train

For most travellers arriving overland from Thailand, Padang Besar is the entry point into Malaysia. A friendly and laid-back town, it’s also the northernmost point of the country’s railway network and is directly linked to the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, by a modern and comfortable train service.

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Route map and details

Padang Besar and Kuala Lumpur’s KL Sentral station are 527km apart and are two of the major stations on Malaysia’s West Coast Main line.

After calling at Alor Setar, the line passes close to Butterworth station in Penang (but doesn’t actually call at the station as it’s accessed via a short branch line) and continues through Taiping and Ipoh before arriving to the Kuala Lumpur.

Timetables

There are five ETS (Electric Train Service) trains per day from Padang Besar to KL Sentral:

How to buy tickets

The easiest way to buy train tickets in Malaysia is online rather than going to the station. You do pay a very small commission but the ease and convenience makes it worthwhile in our opinion.

Baolau is the best site to use for buying train tickets, they have access to the official booking engine, so you can easily see availability, timetables and prices.

Payment can be made using international credit card and PDF confirmation tickets are sent to your email address within a few minutes. This is the actual ticket you need to board the train, so there’s no need to exchange it at the station before travel. You may prefer to print the pdf out, but it’s also fine to show it on your mobile phone to the conductors and station staff.

Padang Besar to Kuala Lumpur train tickets

How much does it cost?

Standard class tickets are slightly cheaper on the Gold class train (EG9449) and slightly more expensive on the Express train (EX9209).

All services on this route have Standard class and Business class apart from the Gold train (EG9449), which only has Standard class.

The prices for each class are: