Ambarawa-Bedono Special steams again

Ambarawa-Bedono Special steams again

By Tjahjono Rahardjo

SEMARANG (JP): It was midday at the railway station of
Ambarawa, a small town in Central Java. The engineer sounded the
shrill whistle of the locomotive. Some passengers who were still
on the platform, among them a number of Europeans, hurriedly
boarded the train. Within minutes the steam locomotive and its
complement of three dark green and cream colored teakwood
carriages slowly pulled out of the station.

No, this was not a scene from the good old times, Tempo
Doeloe. In fact it happened very recently. True, the Ambarawa
station had existed since 1873 and that particular locomotive,
the E1060, was built just after the turn of the century. But the
E1060 is a newcomer to Ambarawa and only started to operate there
in 1996.

By then it was already a seasoned veteran of the line
connecting the Sawahlunto coal mines and Teluk Bayur harbor in
West Sumatra. This line traverses the mighty Bukit Barisan range,
which includes a 43-kilometer rack line, the longest in
Indonesia. The only other rack line in Indonesia, which is
considerably shorter, is a section of the Ambarawa-Magelang line.

The Europeans on the platform were of course not colonial
Dutch civil servants or army officers but railway enthusiasts.

Each year since 1991, Rob Dickinson, a British railway
enthusiast, organizes a "Java Steam" tour for a limited number of
fellow enthusiasts. This year's group consisted of 15 people,
nearly half of them British, three Japanese, two Germans, two
Dutch and one South African.

The three-week tour covered a number of sugar mills in East,
Central and West Java, to look at their steam locomotives as well
as their non-operating steam engines. The tour also included
visits to the Cepu teakwood-forest, a narrow-gauge railway and
the Ambarawa Station, which has now become a locomotive museum.

The scene described above was the first day of the group's
visit to Ambarawa on Aug. 10, 2000, which incidentally was the
133rd anniversary of the opening of Indonesia's first railroad,
the 25-kilometer Semarang-Tanggung line.

On the first day, the group only went as far as Jambu, the
point where the railroad starts to climb and the rack line
actually begins. This was because the E1060 was not equipped for
the Jambu-Bedono rack which uses a somewhat different system than
the one used in West Sumatra.

On the second day, however, they went up the rack line till
Bedono with two "natives" of Ambarawa, the B2502 and B2503
locomotives. These two are the only still operable locomotives of
the original five specially ordered from the Imil Kessler works
in Germany in 1912 to serve this line.

The two locomotives were arranged in, what seemed to me as a
layperson, an unusual way, one in front and other behind the
passenger carriages. Dickinson, however, explained that there was
nothing unusual about this arrangement.

"In the old days they often did this kind of thing" he said.

Anyway, this meant that there was no need to switch the
position of the locomotive before climbing the rack line. With
one locomotive, the common practice was to have the locomotive
pull the carriages till Jambu, shift it to the rear so it could
push instead of pull the train up the gradient.

Besides the foreign railway enthusiasts, there were also a
number of Indonesians among the passengers of the Ambarawa -
Bedono Special. Some of them were Ambarawa school children. Even
for them this was a special occasion.

After all, the Ambarawa-Bedono Special does not have a regular
schedule and is only operated on request. But this does not mean
that it would cost a fortune to charter the train. For only Rp
1.3 million (less than US$200! -- at the current exchange rate),
a train with two carriages that seat about 80 people can be hired
for a two hour return trip.

Then there was the man whose grandfather used to be a steam
locomotive engineer. When he was a boy (now in his early
forties), his grandfather would sometimes take him to the
locomotive sheds. Soon he developed a fondness for steam
locomotives.

While traveling to Yogyakarta from his hometown of Cirebon, he
decided to make a quick visit to the Ambarawa station. Imagine
his delight when he was invited to join the group to Jambu. And
when he learned that there would be another trip the next day, he
decided to stay overnight in Ambarawa to join that one too.

Dickinson's policy is to allow as many locals as possible to
join his railway rides free. He hopes that this will promote
better appreciation of Indonesia's railway and industrial
heritage among Indonesians.

"Besides, it gives the expedition a more authentic
atmosphere," he added.

Needless to say the railway enthusiasts greatly enjoyed the
journey. They were engrossed in taking pictures of the train and
did not hesitate to climb nearby hills or wad streams, just to
have the best possible vantage points. But even for the not-so-
fanatical railway fans these trips were no less fascinating.

Watching the timeless, peaceful Javanese landscape of paddy
fields, volcanoes and running streams from the windows of a
leisurely moving steam-powered train is indeed a very memorable
experience, reminding one of the bygone days when life was
unhurried and less complicated.