Double track railway opens in West Java

Double track railway opens in West Java

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto
yesterday opened a 32.4 kilometer double-track railway connecting
Kadokan Gabus and Haurgeulis in West Java.

The railway is part of a planned 105.74 kilometer double-track
railway which, when completed in 1998, will connect Cikampek and
Cirebon in West Java.

Haryanto said each kilometer of the railway cost about Rp 1
billion (US$434,782), meaning it would cost Rp 105 billion to
build the whole railway.

Soemino Eko Saputro, the president of state-owned railway
company Perum Kereta Api (Perumka), said that trains serving the
north Java line were often delayed at the Kadokan Gabus-
Haurgeulis section, which had been connected by a single-track
railway.

The section, he said, had caused a bottleneck because trains
from Jakarta and Cikampek in the West, from Semarang and Cirebon
in the East and from Purwokerto in the South would often arrive
there at the same time.

He said the double-track railway would increase the capacity
of trains traveling along the line by 200 percent, up from 84
trips a day to 166 trips a day.

The new railway would let trains run faster, up from 85
kilometers an hour to 120 km an hour, he said.

Soemino announced yesterday that Perumka was planning to
launch the second generation of the Argo Bromo express train on
National Transportation Day on Sep. 17.

"The second generation will be faster than the first, which
now serves the Jakarta-Surabaya route in eight hours. It will
also have better facilities and greater comfort," he was quoted
by Antara as saying.

He said the new Argo Bromo train would use bolster-less
coaches from France. Perumka had already ordered 30 executive
coaches and 10 backups.

The opening was marked by the handing over of the railway's
management from Santo Budiono, the Ministry of Transportation's
director general of land transportation, to Perumka's president
Soemino. (pwn)