A ride down memory lane and across the Causeway on Green Bus Company service No. 1

SINGAPORE – For Superintendent Patrick Ong, ties to the Causeway span his professional and personal lives.

The 47-year-old head of strategic communications and media relations at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) started his 23-year career with the agency, then known as Singapore Immigration and Registration, as a senior officer at the Woodlands Checkpoint in December 2001.

His duties then involved overseeing the teams of officers performing immigration clearance for cars, motorcycles, buses or cargo vehicles going through the checkpoint, with the teams rotating between the zones monthly for each vehicle type.

Now, he still finds himself at the Woodlands Checkpoint regularly as part of his professional duties, facilitating media coverage of ICA initiatives and preparing officers ahead of interviews or media events taking place there.

An example of this was the announcement in March that travellers passing through the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints in cars can clear immigration using QR codes instead of their passports.

Family connection

Mr Ong’s connection to the Causeway runs in his veins – his great-grandfather and grandfather owned and ran the iconic Green Bus Company, whose bus No. 1 plied the only Singapore-Johor route from 1950 to the 1970s.

The loop service – which is still roughly mirrored by the present-day Service 170 operated by SBS Transit – started from the old bus terminal in Queen Street and traversed Bukit Timah Road, crossed the Causeway and entered Johor Bahru.

The Green Bus Company’s bus No. 1 plied the only Singapore-Johor route from 1950 to the 1970s. PHOTO: F W YORK

Mr Ong’s aunts, Madam Ong Bee Geok, 75, and her sister, were regular passengers. In Singapore’s pre-independence days, crossing the Causeway was easier as passports were not required, she recalled, and day trips to Malaysia were little different from long rides to the farthest parts of Singapore.

Green Bus Company was originally established as Rochor Bus Co in 1935 by Mr Ong’s great-grandfather, Mr Ong Chin Chuan, and his brother, who enlisted the help of an English-speaking relative, Mr Ong Kim Hock, to register the company.

It eventually had a fleet of 35 buses and operated several bus services from Queen Street to various parts of northern and western Singapore, such as the former Princess Elizabeth estate near Bukit Gombak, as well as Jurong and Lim Chu Kang.

A far cry from buses of today in terms of comfort, the older generation of buses did not have air-conditioning or suspension systems that could cushion the ride over the uneven, poorly maintained roads of yesteryear, earning them nicknames like “bone-shakers”. Nevertheless, the cross-border Green Bus service was well utilised in its time.

The inauguration of the bus service to Johor Bahru on May 1, 1950, coincided with the company’s acquisition of a fleet of Vulcan omnibuses, and the opening of its $100,000 garage and workshop.

Sited in King Albert Park, at the junction of Bukit Timah and Clementi Roads – where KAP Mall now stands – the garage was where the company’s buses often stopped to refuel en route to Malaysia.

It remained a bus depot until the mid-1980s. By that time, Green Bus Company had long been subsumed by the United Bus Company (UBC).

The depot of the Green Bus Company in King Albert Park. PHOTO: PATRICK ONG

UBC was one of three public bus companies, each covering different regions in Singapore, formed in a nationalisation exercise in April 1971 that saw the consolidation of 10 privately owned bus companies to avoid duplication of routes.

Two years later, the Government again reorganised the bus system, giving rise to the Singapore Bus Service, or SBS.

A kidnapping

One of the more notable events in Green Bus Company’s history was the kidnapping of its owner, Mr Ong Cheng Siang – Mr Patrick Ong’s grandfather – who disappeared after dinner at Great World on April 27, 1960. The 44-year-old’s grey Mercedes-Benz was found abandoned in Chinatown that evening, according to a report in The Straits Times then.

A letter was later sent to the family home in Dunearn Road, where the family still lives today, informing them that the car could be found in Hokien Street and where its keys were located.

The kidnappers reportedly demanded $500,000 – more than $2.3 million in today’s terms – for Mr Ong’s release. Nine days later, after the ransom was paid, he was released. Thrown out of a car in Amber Road, he hailed a cab back to his workshop in Rochor Canal Road.

Police suspected his kidnappers were from a gang led by Oh Kim Kee, who was wanted for his suspected involvement in the kidnappings of several high-profile business tycoons in those days. Oh was later killed in a shoot-out with the police on Aug 23, 1960.

Family archivist

Mr Patrick Ong said he believes that learning about this traumatic event may have catalysed his career choice as a way to keep Singapore and his loved ones safe. He has also catalogued his family’s history through photographs amassed over the years, and recorded his family’s stories as told by previous generations.

He said bus drivers and conductors regularly recognised his late grandmother whenever he, as a child, rode the bus with her, and he would wonder if they had a connection to the bus company once owned by his family.

“Documenting their stories and sharing this with others recognise this connection to the past. In a way, I believe it empowers us to acknowledge... their contributions,” Mr Ong, who is single and has a sister, told ST.

He donated several photographs related to Green Bus Company to the National Heritage Board in 2016, and is now concentrating on digitalising more of his family’s photographs, with an intent to pass them on to his three-year-old nephew in the future.