RAILWAYS of INDONESIA

Published in The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com) The Jakarta Post Tue, 04/27/2010 4:01 PM Indah Setiawati Long-time users of the Parahyangan train, which has for almost 40 years ploughed the Jakarta to Bandung route, spared time Monday to watch the train embark on its last journey before its discontinuation. One passenger came with his family from as far as Batam to enjoy the spectacle, while others drove all the way from Tangerang, Banten; all with the same intention of becoming “part of the history” as the last passengers on the train, the operation of which was terminated due to financial losses. “I was so shocked to learn that the Parahyangan would not operate anymore,” Sita Hutabarat, one of the passengers, told The Jakarta Post, adding that recently she had begun taking her car to Bandung, West Java, via the Cipularang turn pike. Sita drove all the way from her house in Tangerang, Banten, to Gambir station in Central Jakarta to take the Parahyangan with her friend, ...

These pictures were taken at Purwosari station on the afternoon of 16 March 2010, while waiting for the Semarang bound Joglosemar train from Yogyakarta.

For more than two decades C1218 (constructed by Hartmann in 1896) was stored in the back of the shed in Cepu , forgotten and neglected but more or less intact. In 2002 a group of foreign railway enthusiasts led by Rob Dickinson, a frequent visitor to Indonesia and an authority on Indonesia ’s railway heritage, were able to collect enough money to move C1218 to Ambarawa . The idea was that it would be restored there, but things did not move as fast as expected, and C1218 sat rusting outside the shed at Ambarawa for about three years. Suddenly, however, in 2005 PTKA (the Indonesian Railway Company) decided that it could spend money to restore C1218 and within a few months Pudjiono and his staff at the Ambarawa Locomotive Depot were able to make C1218 run again. C1218 in Ambarawa The intention was to use the restored C1218 on the flat Ambarawa – Tuntang line. But the line was not ready yet for C1218 as it still needed major improvements. As a result C1218 did not se...