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Gempolkerep Sugar Mill |
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The mill was completely modernised in the late 1970s which included a new locoshed. The steam fleet was rejuvenated with redundant stock from the mills at Merican, Ngadirejo and Lestari which had closed their field lines. Ross Sadler has recently told me that the mill maintained some cane transfer stations to the north of the mill until at least 1994, the full loris from which were brought to the mill area without the benefit of cables. Normally these were diesel hauled but he saw steam used on at least one occasion. With my prejudices, they would have passed me by! There was a long gap in my record here from 1984 onwards while I concentrated almost exclusively on mills known to operate field trains - looking back that was absolutely the right decision although necessarily there will have been some interesting operations missed. I next returned here in 1994 after I decided my tours would no longer visit North Sumatra and I would need some extra mills in Java to fill the gap. A visit here was never easy, even when armed with a permit, but the residual road operation was quite photogrenic, especially in the afternoon. Steam activity declined gradually from the start of the 21st century, and it seems that steam finished completely after 2008. |
