JP/1/RAILWAY.@05

The state-owned Perumka railway company celebrates its anniversary on Sept. 28. On that fateful day in 1945, control of the service was wrested from the Japanese run Tedsudo Kyoku by the company's young Indonesian employees.

The action was precipitated by Indonesia's declaration of independence, which inspired the youths who worked for the company to stage a coordinated action all over the country to seize the reins of the company.

In conjunction with the company's 49th anniversary of the takeover, Jakarta Post reporters, Rita A. Widiadana, Petty Prihartini and photographer Rully Kesuma prepared four stories on the railway company, including its history and current situation. They also interviewed Perumka's president to look at the company's achievements and their designs to face the challenges of the future. The following story by Rita A. Widiadana takes us back to the old times. The other three stories appear on Page 2.

JAKARTA (JP): Slow but never sure. This was the reality of Indonesia's railway in the old days.

"If we took the train, we were never certain when we would arrive at any destination," Mrs. Sujatin Soepeno, an 82-year old grandmother, recollected about the state of the railway 45 years ago.

It took two weeks to travel from Bandung, West Java, to Yogyakarta, compared to the present executive train which takes eight hours to cover the same route. The train was called the Kereta Api Express, but it was popularly known as the sepur balap or racing train. The word sepur originates from the Dutch word spoorweg, or railway, while balap is derived from Javanese and means sprint or race.

"The Kereta Api Express was not a fast train, though. The train moved as slow as a buffalo walking along the rice field's paths. That's why we called the train sepur balap, because it had to race against the buffalo," the grandmother laughed.

That was in l947 when the national railway company, Djawatan Kereta Api (DKARI), had just taken over the rails from Japan. Indonesia was still going through its period of transition.

Margono, 70, a retired employee of the railway company, recalled that, "Taking the train was a risky business. At any time passengers could be attacked by Dutch troops. When that happened, the train had to stop or return to its point of departure."

The 73 year-old Nyoman Widiada, a cattle and farm equipment exporter in Bali, shared his experience of traveling by train in the l950s. It was a painful undertaking just to ship the livestock abroad, he recalled.

"I had to share my seat with the cattle during our journey from Banyuwangi to Tanjung Perak Harbor in Surabaya, East Java. You can imagine the smell in that dark cattle car," he smiled.

During that period, DKARI had old-fashioned steam engines, like the IB locomotive produced by the British firm Fox Walker & Co, and the ID + DD52 locomotive. Both engines could travel between 40 km and 60 km per hour, but could only pull two or three coaches at a time.

"Never wear white clothes when traveling by train, they will turn gray from the smoke from the steam engine," was the advise of a railway official to his customers.

Although railways were introduced in Indonesia in l868, it was not until the early 1940s that Indonesian citizens had the opportunity to travel by train. Previously, they only served the Dutch colonial government and private Dutch and Chinese plantation companies.

Besides the slow intercity trains, Jakarta also had its own transportation system.

Jakarta's initial mass transportation system were its trams. They first appeared in l925 and were operated by Bataviache Verkeers Maatschppij. The trams were produced by Lin Kota and ran between Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta and Jatinegara in East Jakarta.

Alex, 60, reminisced about taking the city's first mode of mass transportation. "It was really fun although the train took two hours to reach Kota from Tanah Abang. Cars and buses were very rare," he pointed out.

Jakarta was home to only 623,000 people in l945 compared to today's overwhelming nine million.

Commuters, Alex said, came mostly from low-income groups such as laborers and traders as well as students. Many of whom, like today, refused to pay for their tickets. The train conductors, however, would smile and let them continue their journey in the crowded coaches.

"It was taboo for rich people to take the tram. It would hurt their status in society," he added.

In l957 the city administration replaced the trams with buses operated by the state transportation company PPD.