Crashed train to be renamed for better luck

Crashed train to be renamed for better luck

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For some Indonesian bureaucrats, the Javanese belief that bad
luck is traceable to a name still holds very true.

Javanese parents will usually select a new name for a child
who frequently falls ill, is accident prone or who has other
kinds of bad luck. They will throw a party to reintroduce the
child to neighbors.

The management of state-owned railway PT KAI plan to rename
the Empu Jaya train because it has been involved in a number of
accidents.

The latest accident on Tuesday claimed the lives of 30
passengers and forced key managers to resign under strong public
pressure.

"Empu Jaya is possibly too weighty, therefore, it has often
been involved in accidents. We are thinking hard of a substitute
name," said KAI president director Badar Zaini in a media
conference.

There is no explanation how the poor train got its name. One
version has it that the name Empu Jaya derives from the words
"Lempuyangan", an old railway station in Yogyakarta, and "Jakarta
Raya", or greater Jakarta, the route it usually served.

But finding a new name for the economy class train with a
front section reduced to a mass of twisted metal after a headlong
collision has proven not easy.

Railway managers are considering renaming the ill-fated train
after a major river because business trains have been named after
mountains, such as Argo (Mount) Lawu and Argo Bromo.

Some managers have been entertaining the idea of renaming Empu
Jaya after major rivers Berantas, Progo and Code -- which trains
pass over on the way from West Java to East Java.

For them, legendary British playwright William Shakespeare's
famous saying "What's in a name?" just does not apply.