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.