When mainline steam on the PJKA ended in 1984, foreign steam enthusiasts continued to visit Java to see steam locos working at the sugar mills and at Cepu Forest Railway and Ambarawa Rack Line where charters were arranged. Mainline diesels were not the main reason for the visit but we normally stopped to watch trains go by and sometimes had access to stations and depots to see how the railway was continuing in the diesel age. I have now collected all my Java steam videos onto one 4TB hard drive which means that I can check different visits for any mainline footage. By request, I am making this available on RU-vid. The first year I’ve looked at is 2001.
On this short video, we see trains into Panarukan and running over the flat crossing with the Wringinanom sugar cane line to the south. Closed in the early 2000s, this is a route I’d love to see reinstated. Moving west, we see trains at Bangil and en route to Malang and at Madiun. Near Sindanglaut (I believe or possibly Tersana Baru), we see a sugar mill steam loco at an overbridge with the mainline and a mainline train passing. Finally, in Garut, we see the disused station which has now been reinstated for trains from (I believe) Bandung (via the junction at Cibatu) although I have not yet heard that public passenger trains are running again. I visited this line in the early 1980s to see CC50 and CC10 Mallets at work.
Watch out for more mainline extracts from further trips to Java in 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2017 and possibly back to the 1990s.
24 окт 2020
