Tanjung Tualang Tin Dredge is a unique heritage icon from Malaysia’s tin mining heydays…

I am just the sort of person to live all these rich history stories and was pretty excited to see this place personally…

The tin dredge is similar to a floating factory and well, we were given the ooportunity to visit one, named Tanjung Tualang Dredge No. 5, or more fondly known as the TT5,  which is a whooping 4,500 tons tin tredge supported by a pontoon of 75 meters in length, 35 meters in width and 3 meters in depth.

TT5 was built in England back in 1938 by F.W.Payne & Son which, at that time, was a very well known design engineering company in bucketline dredges.

The tin dredges scoops up bucket loads of tin-bearing soil at the front end, which then passes through an oscillating drum and a system of jigs and screens to extract the tin, before spewing out the waste material at the rear end through a number of chutes.

TT5 was built for the Southern Malayan Tin Dredging Ltd, a company formed in 1926 which operated another 5 other dredges  in the Batu Gajah and Tanjung Tualang area.

TT5 dredge fell on hard times in 1982 and that was after all the other dredges in the area had alread been disposed… and well TT5 was in danger of being of being sold off for its high scrap metal value, that was until the Menteri Besar Incorporater Perak company (MB Inc) launched a “Save the Dredge” campaign which was successful so, TT5 dredge has been preserved and restored and is still under more restoration activities and area development to make the area and ground around TT5 a hipster and cool place to work/live and enjoy as well…

For now, TT5 is open to the public, and you can visit the little museum/shop and hall first before ushered to the safety container to collect your hard hats … yup… visitors will be have to put on one of those plastic construction hats before being taken on a guided tour of the last tin dredge….

It is indeed a very unique experience and made me appreciate people from the past for their hard labour more… as well as the TT5’s own contribution to make Perak the rich state it is today….

Do pop over to visit the old but lovely TT5 at 9th KM, Jalan Tanjung Tualang, 31000 Batu Gajah….

or visit her IG https://www.instagram.com/tanjungtualangno5/
to check out the fun activities around the area… which I heard include a time capsule, bazaars, bbq parties, music, camping etc…etc…

Thanks to both Gaya Travel Magazine and Tourism Perak for this aazing opportunity to visit this amazing place.. and lets do our part to save TT5….