Six-hour delay colors homecoming
Six-hour delay colors homecoming
Tony Hotland and Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A six-hour delay colored Friday's homecoming for travelers on
economy-class trains as the number of returning holidaymakers
remained low.
The Gaya Baru Malam Selatan train was derailed in Cirebon,
West Java, at around 4:45 a.m. when the wheels of one of its 12
cars came off the tracks.
The train, carrying 184 passengers, departed from Surabaya on
Thursday afternoon and finally arrived at Pasar Senen railway
station in Central Jakarta at 12 p.m., six hours behind schedule.
A passenger, Edi, said that the train started to shake at a
turn near a bridge in Ketanggungan, near Cirebon.
"We were panicking because the train stopped on the bridge,"
he said. "But passengers managed to keep calm after realizing
that no one was hurt."
The incident forced passengers on board the last three cars to
crowd into the other nine cars. The derailed cars were finally
removed but it caused a six hour delay for the Bima train from
Surabaya and the Gajayana train from Malang, East Java. Both
trains, carrying more than 300 passengers, were rerouted through
the southern route but they were still six hours behind schedule
upon their arrivals at Senen railway station.
The derailment took place only a day after the Matarmaja train
traveling the route between Malang and Jakarta was derailed in
Semarang, causing hours of delay for its some 400 passengers.
The incident, however, did not cause too much disruption as
the number of returning travelers after the Idul Fitri
celebration, which fell on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, remained low.
Heads of railway stations and bus terminals expected the
influx to peak over the weekend from Friday evening to Sunday,
with some two million Jakartans returning home as most office
workers and students will resume activities on Monday.
"The peak will be, most probably, on the weekend because
people will go back to work on Monday," spokesman of state-owned
railway company PT KAI, Zainal Abidin, told reporters.
He said that tickets for travelers returning to Jakarta from
Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 had been sold out in most cities, particularly,
of Yogyakarta, Semarang and Surabaya.
Pasar Senen railway station saw 16 arriving trains on Friday
with a total of 6,125 passengers. The number was slightly less
than Thursday's 7,935 people.
Pulogadung bus terminal, East Jakarta, saw over 5,000 people
arrive on 100 buses. The terminal experienced the peak of the
influx on the seventh day after the holiday last year with 48,954
passengers arriving on 977 buses.
At Tanjung Priok seaport in North Jakarta, the number of
arriving passengers was below some ships capacity.
PT Pelni's Kelud, sailing from Belawan seaport in North
Sumatra to Jakarta, only carried 816 travelers on Thursday, far
from its capacity of around 1,500 passengers.
"There is no significant increase in passengers compared to
regular days," said Sutrisno, the head of operations at Tanjung
Priok seaport. He expected the peak on Sunday when another ship
from Belawan would dock.
The Soekarno-Hatta International Airport's domestic terminals
were also quiet. The airport's field coordinator for Idul Fitri,
Gatot Priyono, said that the peak of the influx would be this
weekend.
To provide security amid the increasing inflow of passengers
over the weekend, Gatot pointed out that the airport's police
precinct would deploy 80 officers at the domestic terminals.
As for people traveling in private vehicles, toll road
operator PT Jasa Marga started to provide additional lanes for
vehicles from the northern coastal route entering the Cikopo toll
gate on Thursday.