Six-hour delay colors homecoming<\/p>\n
Tony Hotland and Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
A six-hour delay colored Friday's homecoming for travelers on
\neconomy-class trains as the number of returning holidaymakers
\nremained low.<\/p>\n
The Gaya Baru Malam Selatan train was derailed in Cirebon,
\nWest Java, at around 4:45 a.m. when the wheels of one of its 12
\ncars came off the tracks.<\/p>\n
The train, carrying 184 passengers, departed from Surabaya on
\nThursday afternoon and finally arrived at Pasar Senen railway
\nstation in Central Jakarta at 12 p.m., six hours behind schedule.<\/p>\n
A passenger, Edi, said that the train started to shake at a
\nturn near a bridge in Ketanggungan, near Cirebon.<\/p>\n
\"We were panicking because the train stopped on the bridge,\"
\nhe said. \"But passengers managed to keep calm after realizing
\nthat no one was hurt.\"<\/p>\n
The incident forced passengers on board the last three cars to
\ncrowd into the other nine cars. The derailed cars were finally
\nremoved but it caused a six hour delay for the Bima train from
\nSurabaya and the Gajayana train from Malang, East Java. Both
\ntrains, carrying more than 300 passengers, were rerouted through
\nthe southern route but they were still six hours behind schedule
\nupon their arrivals at Senen railway station.<\/p>\n
The derailment took place only a day after the Matarmaja train
\ntraveling the route between Malang and Jakarta was derailed in
\nSemarang, causing hours of delay for its some 400 passengers.<\/p>\n
The incident, however, did not cause too much disruption as
\nthe number of returning travelers after the Idul Fitri
\ncelebration, which fell on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, remained low.<\/p>\n
Heads of railway stations and bus terminals expected the
\ninflux to peak over the weekend from Friday evening to Sunday,
\nwith some two million Jakartans returning home as most office
\nworkers and students will resume activities on Monday.<\/p>\n
\"The peak will be, most probably, on the weekend because
\npeople will go back to work on Monday,\" spokesman of state-owned
\nrailway company PT KAI, Zainal Abidin, told reporters.<\/p>\n
He said that tickets for travelers returning to Jakarta from
\nNov. 28 to Dec. 1 had been sold out in most cities, particularly,
\nof Yogyakarta, Semarang and Surabaya.<\/p>\n
Pasar Senen railway station saw 16 arriving trains on Friday
\nwith a total of 6,125 passengers. The number was slightly less
\nthan Thursday's 7,935 people.<\/p>\n
Pulogadung bus terminal, East Jakarta, saw over 5,000 people
\narrive on 100 buses. The terminal experienced the peak of the
\ninflux on the seventh day after the holiday last year with 48,954
\npassengers arriving on 977 buses.<\/p>\n
At Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta, the number of
\narriving passengers was below some ships capacity.<\/p>\n
PT Pelni's Kelud, sailing from Belawan seaport in North
\nSumatra to Jakarta, only carried 816 travelers on Thursday, far
\nfrom its capacity of around 1,500 passengers.<\/p>\n
\"There is no significant increase in passengers compared to
\nregular days,\" said Sutrisno, the head of operations at Tanjung
\nPriok seaport. He expected the peak on Sunday when another ship
\nfrom Belawan would dock.<\/p>\n
The Soekarno-Hatta International Airport's domestic terminals
\nwere also quiet. The airport's field coordinator for Idul Fitri,
\nGatot Priyono, said that the peak of the influx would be this
\nweekend.<\/p>\n
To provide security amid the increasing inflow of passengers
\nover the weekend, Gatot pointed out that the airport's police
\nprecinct would deploy 80 officers at the domestic terminals.<\/p>\n
As for people traveling in private vehicles, toll road
\noperator PT Jasa Marga started to provide additional lanes for
\nvehicles from the northern coastal route entering the Cikopo toll
\ngate on Thursday.<\/p>",
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"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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