|
Madukismo Sugar Mill |
||
|
Madukismo is a mill south of Yogya, supplied by East Germany in the 1950s. It was very much a political gesture and the story goes that when everything was unpacked and assembled, it was was found to be suitable not for processing sugar cane, but for sugar beet which, of course, would have been the natural crop in that part of Northern Europe. In due course, suitable replacement components were sourced and the mill entered production. Of course, there was no question of supplying steam locomotives by then and the railway was operated by diesels. As an interesting aside, the mill engines were steam, supplied by Sangerhausen and later these were sold off to Rejoagung where they replaced what I believe would have been the early electric motors which powered that mill's second mill line. At some stage in the 1980s, the mill purchased Tersana Baru 12 for a proposed tourist operation but I have no idea how long, if at all, it operated but I have seen a 1995 photograph of it looking 'well loved'. In 2003, I felt I had to check out the mill itself and found it to be now steamless, but I was able to photograph 12 while I was there. |
