RAILWAYS of INDONESIA

It started only as a drizzle on Saturday (7 February 2009) evening, but later in the night it turned into a raging rainstorm. By Sunday morning the city was paralysed as floodwater inundated many parts of the city. The water level in some parts reached 150 centimetres. The airport was closed for all flights and the main roads into Semarang were under 50 centimetres of water. One of the worst hit areas was Tawang Station, Semarang’s main railway station. The tracks were inaccessible, forcing the total closure of the entire northern coast railway line. Trains between Jakarta – Surabaya v.v. had to take the longer southern route - through Solo – muddling up the timetable. By 19.00 on Sunday, however, the line was reopened. This was possible thanks to a plucky little veteran, BB 30024. This shunter plied back and forth between Poncol Station, passing through Tawang Station, and Alastuwa Station in the eastern edge of Semarang, pulling all kinds of passenger and goods trains. At both Ponco...

My friend Yosanto Bakhtiar, the Treasurer of the Indonesian Railway Preservation Society (IRPS) Semarang asked me to go with him to Alastuwa, a small station at the east edge of Semarang, on Friday 30 October in the evening. He had promised the station master, who was on night duty that evening, to give him some pictures of steam engines for the station. Allas Toewa (Alastuwa) 1867 Alastuwa 1990 Alastuwa is one of the oldest stations in Indonesia. It is on Indonesia's first railway line built between Semarang and Tanggung. The present station building, however, is not the original one built in 1867. Soon after we arrived at about 22.00 it started to rain very hard. We came by motorbike so we had to wait for the rain to stop till about 01.00 in the morning. But actually we had a good time because the station was very busy at that time. According to the station master between 09.00 and 06.00 the next morning sixteen passenger trains plus a number of freight trains pass through the s...