Priok rail station to be expanded

Priok rail station to be expanded

JAKARTA (JP): Plans are in the making to expand facilities at
the Tanjung Priok railway station by adding a new route for
passenger trains, an official of state-owned railway company
Perumka said yesterday.

Perumka's Jakarta Operations Office chief, Eddy Sasongko,
refuted earlier press reports saying that Minister of
Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto wanted Tanjung Priok station
to be used as a container terminal.

Antara news agency quoted the minister as saying Wednesday
that he wanted Perumka to reactivate the Tanjung Priok railway
station for use as a freight and container railroad transport
terminal.

"The minister's instruction to us says that the Tanjung Priok
station should have additional routes for passenger trains, and
not for containers," Eddy told The Jakarta Post. A new route
currently being planned is between Jakarta (Priok) and
Banjarnegara, Central Java.

According to Eddy, the Tanjung Priok station is still being
used for passenger and freight trains. However, facilities are at
present available only for economy class travelers from Jakarta
to Semarang and Surakarta, Central Java.

The only route available at present for the transportation of
freight by railroad, Eddy said, runs from Gedebage in Bandung,
West Java, through the Tanjung Priok station to the Pasoso
railroad terminal about one kilometer further toward the harbor.

"At present freight transports run at an average of four times
a day, but we can increase this to six," he said.

Impossible

Eddy said it was impossible to turn the Tanjung Priok railway
station into a container transport terminal because it was not
equipped with container transportation facilities. Furthermore,
he explained, the electric wires running above the tracks for the
electric trains would be in the way of the cranes that would be
needed to move the containers.

According to Eddy, the Pasoso terminal on the other hand could
be used for containers as there are no electric wires there.

"So far, container loading and unloading activities occur at
the Pasoso terminal and not Tanjung Priok station," Eddy said. He
added, however, that Perumka was planning to open a container
railroad transport service from Pasoso to Surabaya. (01)