Want to try riding the Singapore MRT Thomson-East Coast Line from Stevens to Gardens by the Bay? The Thomson-East Coast line starts in Woodlands in the north, skitters down along the east side of the Central Catchment, cuts through a big swath of downtown shopping and commercial districts, and finally runs along the southeastern coastline through the East Coast/Katong area. If you ride the south-central section of the line, here’s what you can see stop by stop.
Looking for more rail adventures? For an overview of every MRT and LRT line, plus suggestions for where to start, visit Singapore by MRT and LRT.
Stevens-Napier-Orchard Boulevard-Orchard
Stevens
By far the best part of this stop is the Syllabus for Stevens Art in Transit piece, which features fake slate books with titles like “Mathematically Impossible Mammals,” “Writing Legibly,” “Suspicious Sonnets and Their Secrets,” “How to Be Truly Ironic,” and “Hiccups and Hickeys: The Dangers of Failed Romances.”
Beyond this, Stevens is a fantastically boring stop. I’ve found mini-adventures there by strolling in narrow Malcolm Park and visiting the even tinier CPIB Corruption Reporting and Heritage Centre (check opening hours before visiting). Beyond this, it’s condos and roadways as far as the eye can see.
Stevens does offer a connection to the Downtown Line, so if you need to head up to Bukit Panjang or out to Changi Airport, this is one option for getting to those places.
Napier
This station plays up its proximity to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which is a good move — the stop sits just across the street from the garden’s Tanglin Gate.
I find myself returning to the Botanic Gardens time and again — it’s one of at least six Singapore parks easily accessible by MRT ç and Napier Station makes it even easier to visit.
Beyond this, Napier provides access to embassies, high commissions, a major hospital, and Interpol, but nothing I’d call fun (just the opposite — the US Embassy here looks like an edifice straight out of the Cold War, and Interpol just sounds scary).
Orchard Boulevard
Let the shopping begin! Orchard Boulevard gives ready access to malls, hotels, and the Singapore “Tourism Court.”
This is the place to go if you want to empty your wallet at the far western end of Singapore’s best-known shopping mecca, Orchard Road. You can also scratch your head at PULSE, a station Art in Transit piece that features stylized pipes and shiny colors.
Orchard
Here we are: shopping heaven. Orchard is a world of endless malls, giant hotels, and shiny buildings everywhere.
Worried about getting too wet or too hot? Don’t fret: there are underground tunnels everywhere, so you rarely have to face the elements. And the MRT links right into that tunnel system; Orchard station has 13 exits, making it the MRT stop with the highest number of exits in the whole system (because of this, I also find it the most maddeningly difficult station to actually exit).
Orchard also has station art that, while not especially attractive, does a good job of capturing the crazy look of Orchard Road at night.
Orchard also serves as an interchange for the North South Line.
Great World-Havelock-Outram Park-Maxwell
Great World
Now we’re suddenly in the land of condos. Great World sits in the wealthy area of River Valley, and there’s not much to do here besides visit the Great World shopping mall or go for a walk along the Singapore River.
If you have a few minutes (or a few hours), a walk along the river is a great way to spend a bit of time — you can meander all the way down to Marina Bay. Or you can spend time reading the advertisements in the station that hearken back to the day when Great World was one of Singapore’s busiest entertainment hubs.
Havelock
When I reached Havelock, my first thought was “this station is very beige.” So I was glad to find that, once we got outside, Havelock has a lot of history and culture (finally!). The first thing we noticed was the kind-of-awful, kind-of-wonderful Tan Boon Liat building.
Built in 1976 on the ruins of two burned godowns (storage warehouses), this blue monstrosity incongruously houses furniture stores and design studios of all sorts.
If you walk in the other direction, you find yourself in the oldest housing estate in Singapore: Tiong Bahru.
This neighborhood is home to Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre, which has some of the best hawker stalls in the country (it’s so well known that the Havelock MRT station has a large, grammatically incorrect poster titled “Reminiscing Tiong Bahru”).
Havelock also gave us our first glimpse into Singapore’s religious life, from the elaborate Giok Hong Tian Temple — one of the oldest temples in Singapore — to tiny tree-side altars.
Outram Park
This is where things really get interesting. If you take the correct exit — the one closest to Kiong Saik Road — you’ll end up in a riot of shophouses and murals and color.
Outram Park is a huge interchange — you can connect to both the North East and the East West lines here — so depending on how you exit the station, it’s easy to end up someplace boring like a sprawling medical compound or a giant police complex. But there’s also some really great adventuring nearby, and you might also stumble on some fun station art.
Maxwell
Now you’re at the entrance to Chinatown, with the renowned Maxwell Food Centre on one side of the street and the looming Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (above) on the other. This is where you go to eat, either at Maxwell or at Chinatown Complex (below, which is my preference) …
… look at murals …
… and to admire all that Singapore’s Chinatown has to offer.
Shenton Way-Marina Bay-Gardens by the Bay
Shenton Way
Wow, is Shenton Way boring. There is very little here unless you like (a) tall, shiny financial buildings or (b) marshy grass. It’s a very functional stop, because it gets you to the Central Business District (CBD). From there, it’s pretty much skyscraper after skyscraper.
As with anywhere, though, you can find fun things if you’re willing to do a bit of searching. Nestled among these towering edifices is the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, where you can learn about Singapore’s food, kopi culture, religious rituals, and more.
I was also a big fan of Shenton Way’s station art, “Everyday Singapore.”
Marina Bay
We thought Shenton Way was our most boring stop until we hit the wide open nothingness of Marina Bay.
In fairness to the Marina Bay stop, if you take a different exit, you can get closer to the downtown buildings that are closest to Marina Bay itself. But the bay itself is still a long walk away.
We also very much disliked the station art at Marina Bay, though we were fascinated by the vastness of the station itself. What an escalator system!
Gardens by The Bay
This was our favorite stop of the journey! There’s so much to see here, from the southern end of Gardens by the Bay …
… to Marina Barrage (which includes both a place to fly kites and a museum run by Singapore’s national water agency) …
… to a water playground …
… to views out over the water.
I also spent a long time studying the cool historical maps in the station:
It’s amazing how much this area has grown over time; the land that now hosts this station is all reclaimed, built up over time since the 1980s.
3 responses to “Singapore by MRT: The Thomson-East Coast Line, Stevens to Gardens by the Bay”
Great post right here! I’m excited to return to Singapore (my last trip there was in 2019, before the pandemic) and your virtual tour of the TEL made it even better.
I’ve also read plans to connect the line to Changi Airport — fingers crossed!
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