If you even find some moderate amount of enjoyment would you consider giving us even a little bit of a
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All photos: Brad Peadon (PRHS / SRF Media)
While returning from a trip to Masbate to visit an unwell relative, who sadly is no longer with us, I decided to make the most of the journey and stop at a few Philippine National Railways locations to conduct the usual informal heritage surveys I have been undertaking since my first visit to the Philippines in 1999.
Despite being very down about the relative, the beloved guards did their level best to make things worse.
Over the years I have witnessed some truly appalling examples of railway heritage vandalism and neglect — Paco station, I'm looking directly at you — but I also have a few personal examples which particularly irritate me. Hondagua and Lucena are two prime examples, largely because both represent surviving pieces of railway history that could, with a little imagination and considerably less institutional indifference, be preserved rather than simply allowed to deteriorate.
Having encountered an especially unimpressed security automaton at Hondagua station the previous day, I decided to try my luck at Lucena. Historically, Lucena had usually been one of the more interesting and welcoming places to poke around, and over the years I had found the railway staff there considerably more approachable than at many other locations.
There were two main reasons for my visit. Firstly, I wanted to see whether there had been any progress with the restoration of the historic original station building. This has been something of a long-running saga. Unfortunately, the answer was essentially no — despite the passage of more than a decade since the ill-fated restoration work began, well, more correctly, never actually made any real start.
The second reason was rather more straightforward: I wanted to have a look around the yard and record what rollingstock and railway equipment was present, as I have done at Lucena and numerous other PNR locations many times over the past 27 years. It is precisely this sort of mundane photographic recording that becomes surprisingly valuable later, particularly when the railway decides to remove something, relocate it, or otherwise pretend it never existed.
Not that these years of effort are given a stuff about right now.
Unfortunately, by 2026, even Lucena appears to have succumbed to the increasingly unwelcoming nature of PNR when it comes to visitors. Others, however, still seem able to wander wherever the mood takes them, which does raise the obvious question of whether the restrictions are actually about security, or simply about preventing somebody from asking awkward questions about the state of the railway.
Perhaps it is embarrassment.
After all, it isn't particularly easy to proudly show a railway enthusiast around a heritage site when the most obvious feature is the amount of heritage that has been left waiting for somebody to do something about it.
Nevertheless, I managed to have a wee tad of a look at the situation.
The run-around loop is believed to remain booked out of use, while more or less the same collection of wagons continues to sit around the yard, seemingly waiting patiently for a purpose, a destination or perhaps retirement — whichever arrives first.
The rebuilt locomotive shed, however, still looks rather good. In fact, it represents a vast improvement over what I found during my first visit. It is a reminder that PNR can produce worthwhile results when the effort and resources are actually applied to the job.
Sadly, many of the friendly PNR crews who once made visits such fun appear to have moved on. In their place we now seem to have the ever-present security guards, standing around with the sort of officious enthusiasm normally reserved for people who have just been handed a new rulebook and discovered they can actually enforce it.
According to information published on the PNR Facebook page, Lucena City is now down to just one train a day. This is the 05:00 departure to Halang 2, which is now effectively the inconveniently Calamba service following the closure of the former major Calamba railway yard.
The return working is listed as departing at 17:45 which presumably makes for a rather late arrival at Lucena — assuming, of course, that everything runs to time, an assumption which railway enthusiasts everywhere are encouraged to make purely for comedic purposes.
These services appear to be operated by one of the surviving INKA railcars, with locomotive-hauled operations now seemingly concentrated largely in the Bicol region.
And perhaps most telling of all, there are no regular passenger services from Lucena south towards Lupi Viejo.
So Lucena remains a rather strange mixture of past, present and unfinished business. The railway is still alive, but only just; the historic station remains, but its promised restoration has effectively become a monument to procrastination; and the yard still contains remnants of the railway's operational past, although increasingly without any obvious operational purpose.
For someone who has been photographing and documenting Philippine railways since 1999, it is both fascinating and frustrating to see.
The railway has changed enormously during those 27 years. Unfortunately, not all of those changes could reasonably be described as progress.
The 'Minister of Wa\r & Finance' waits at the shed entrance.
Phot: Brad Peadon
TMC-2 is one of two Italian built shunters purchased during the GM Junn Magno era.
Fascinating things, and very useful in avoiding the need to use larger locos for the minor shunting usually required.
With the run around out of use, it saw regular use in the days of three daily loco hauled services. No idea what it does now.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Photo: Brad Peadon
I have seen these things getting around a bit over the years.
I love the irony of their using these contraptions, things that are supposedly illegally used by so many locals.
It does little to help uphold that rule.
But, I guess as long as all the illegal sleds don't hold cameras all is good :-)
Photo: Brad Peadon
But, I guess as long as all the illegal sleds don't hold cameras all is good :-)
Photo: Brad Peadon
Looking towards the Bicol end of the line from near the station. It has been a long time since regular services left in that direction.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Photo: Brad Peadon
Above and three below.
Looks to be a lot of rail awaiting reuse.
One can only imagine it is lifted from Metro Manila during that ill conceived idea that has left so much operational stock isolated.
Photos: Brad Peadon
Photos: Brad Peadon
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Lucena Station — Saved From the Wrecking Ball by Someone Actually Noticing It Was Historic.
But remains a disgraceful moment in Philippine railway history that still awaits the repair over a decade later.
G’day thrillseekers, and welcome to another episode of Philippine Railway Preservation — where sometimes you have to save the historic station from the people who are supposed to be restoring it.
Lucena station in Quezon Province has been associated with the railway since 1913, although the substantial building we know today dates from 1938, when the line was extended south towards Bicol. For decades it was an important stop on the PNR South Main Line, surviving generations of trains, typhoons, railway decline and the general neglect that seems to befall anything old and railway-related.
Then, in June 2015, came some good news. PNR announced a ₱15.3-million restoration project for the historic station.
Excellent! At last, someone was going to preserve it.
Except there was one slight problem: their apparent interpretation of restoration seemed to involve pulling rather a lot of the historic building apart.
By September 2015, local authorities had become sufficiently concerned that Lucena Mayor Roderick Alcala ordered PNR to stop work. People had started asking the rather reasonable question of whether the station was actually being restored or simply demolished with a much nicer-sounding description attached to the project.
After all, restoration by demolition is a fairly interesting concept. It's a bit like restoring an old steam locomotive by throwing half of it into a skip and then proudly announcing that the paintwork will be lovely.
Fortunately, somebody noticed what was happening before too much of the old station disappeared. The building was subsequently recognised locally as an important cultural property, helping ensure that what remained would be protected.
Unfortunately, stopping the work didn't mean everything was immediately put back together. Lucena then entered the wonderful world of being partly restored, partly dismantled, partly under construction and largely waiting for somebody to decide what the hell happened next.
The Philippine Railway Historical Society documented its unfinished condition during visits, and years later there was still little significant progress. Then, in a magnificent piece of railway irony, trains began returning to the Lucena area in 2022 while the historic station itself was still waiting for somebody to finish the job.
So Lucena station survived railway decline, years of neglect and, perhaps most remarkably, a restoration project that appeared to be in danger of destroying the very thing it was supposed to preserve.
At least the old station is still there — and in the often bewildering world of Philippine railway heritage, simply not being turned into a pile of rubble sometimes counts as a spectacular preservation victory.
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Nhing and our driver.
Half decent PNR security guards who didn't go frantic.
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Stolen: Werris Creek (NSW Australia).
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