Penang hill thrill ride?

This is just my second trip up Penang Hill in the spiffy new coaches and this time, I made sure to be more aware of my surroundings. Went up there with some friends from Kuala Lumpur during a weekday and as luck would have it, we bumped in yet more friends up there. Small world indeed!

Was also mighty glad that I brought along my old Konica Minolta Dimage Z5 instead of the Panasonic DMC-FS15 because the pictures turned out sharper despite the lower number of pixels.

Here are some rather dramatic (in my opinion, anyway) pictures that I snapped as the coach approached the old middle station and started veering off left on the new tracks before approaching the new loop. As I had mentioned before, the two coaches were approaching one another at a relatively great speed of about 60 kilometres an hour.

But I don't understand is why the Penang Hill Authority -- I presume the PHA is the government authority that is running the funicular train service as well as looking after the developments on the Penang Hill -- allows their staff to ride in the open-air cargo compartment at the front of the coach. Is this a throw-back to the old days when the coaches were still slowly trundling up the tracks and the authorities were closing one eye (both both eyes) to such practices? By allowing it to continue today is simply dangerous and irresponsible. Well and good if there is no untoward incident but I can imagine all the hue and cry, including the legal implications, if some sort of accident were to happen and the two staff are injured.