In the Shadow of Volcanoes

Hilly West Java is the home to the Sunda people, but the true Javanese live in Central and East Java. Here, the atmosphere has always been very relaxed and beyond Cirebon life is far less hectic. Cirebon had a number of D52s for trains to Jakarta and Prupuk to the south-east. It also had some old locos, B13 and B50, which were used to pump water at Jatibarang, the junction for the long defunct Indramayu branch. B1306 is preserved, appropriately in the station approach at Cirebon.

For many years Tegal shed was an oasis. Almost every locomotive was a treasure and kept as such. B22 0-4-2 skirt tanks, tiny B52 0-4-0s and spindly Klien Lindner D10 and D15 0-8-0Ts went about their business in timeless fashion. The B22 shunted the line to the port although no-one seems to have had time to photograph this. The line south to Prupuk was largely the preserve of the B52s while the coastal local trains to Pekalongan were worked by B52 and D15. In the early days, like most enthusiasts I toured Java in an anticlockwise direction, mainly because step one was to collect a permit from HQ in Bandung. So Tegal tended to get only a cursory visit and I always got there tired and ready to go home at the end of my trips. I feel that I never did it justice, but fortunately others got there too before steam finished.

The area beyond Pekalongan to Semarang was long lost to steam, although many locomotives remained in store. South of Semarang, the rack line at Ambarawa somehow survived the closure of its connecting line to Yogyakarta. Today, Ambarawa is home to Java's first railway museum with more than 20 steam locomotives on display and visitors can still travel up the hill to Bedono with a B25 on a charter train.