RAILWAYS of INDONESIA

. It is known that the Netherlands East Indies Railway Company, who’s new Administration Building in Semarang was put into operation in the beginning of July of 1907, some images of which are hereby presented, has built the first railway in Java. The first or trunk line was built to connect the booming Vorstenlanden of Surakarta (Solo) and Yogyakarta (Yogya) with Semarang, their natural sea port. That is how Semarang became and remains the Netherlands Indies seat of the 's-Gravenhage based company and of which the whole of the Indies owes so much, as it gave the impetus to the improvement of the traffic system in the East Indies. The main Semarang-Vorstenlanden line with the Kedoeng Djattie-William I branch line, now extending 206 kilometers, was, as far as its last section Solo Yogya is concerned, opened for public traffic on 10 June 1872  , and its branch line on 21 May 1873.  This line is located in Central Java. In addition, almost simultaneo...

Recently, the daily newspaper "The Jakarta Post" published an article "Lawang Sewu, a haunted, sad place." Now, after years of neglect and uncertainty, the former Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij (Netherlands Indies Railway Company, or NIS) head office is being restored by the I ndonesian Railway Company (PTKA) Regional Office in Semarang. When this building was completed in 1907 it was a very modern building. The architects, J.F. Klinkhamer and B.J. Ouëndag, made a careful study of Semarang’s climatic condition. As a result, they came up with a design which is dominated by galleries (inspired by the front and rear galleries [ voor- en achter galerijen ] of Indies style houses) and louvered doors (in fact, many of them). This is why the people of Semarang affectionately gave the building the nickname “Lawang Sewu” (“The Thousand Doors” in Javanese). Recently, however, the building is more known as a haunted place. This, no doubt, recalls the time when i...