Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Karangsuwung full yard [at least three different styles of empty wholestick trucks], John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Karangsuwung full yard transloader, John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Karangsuwung hand shunting [empty wholestick truck] to empty yard transloader, John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Sindanglaut [derelict] tenders, John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Sindanglaut ex 2w-2PMR jack trolley transloader, John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Sindanglaut 2 0-6-0DH Keio 2 1983 1 0-6-0DH Keio 1 1983 transloaders, John Browning photographer
Image: Steamy Java 2008: PG Sindanglaut yard full side, John Browning photographer
Indonesia's sugar industry is fast becoming the last significant outpost of industrial narrow gauge steam in the world, and fortunately it is close to our shores.
The track gauges used by the mills are 600mm, 700mm and 720mm. 720mm was adopted by the Dutch as the narrow gauge of choice and so predominates. Steam locomotives can be seen in use at no more than 15 sugar mills now, out of more than 50 that once used them.
There are large numbers of disused steam locomotives. Diesel locomotives are used, but the older ones are generally unserviceable. German locomotives, steam and diesel, made up the bulk of units supplied, but the modern diesels in use tend to be Japanese.
Only a few mills operate field lines with harvested cane being loaded directly onto cane trucks. In most cases, the rail operations are to transport the cane a few hundred metres from a transfer station to the mill, with road trucks bringing the cane to the transfer point for unloading onto cane trucks.
There are two reasons why the arrangement persists. One is because the mill operates 24 hours a day, with harvesting limited generally to the daytime, so the loaded cane trucks are in effect a mobile storage system to enable night time cane deliveries to the mill. The second reason is because there is little inclination to invest capital altering the tried and tested rail-based cane delivery system to the carrier.
Cane is loaded longitudinally in Java, and often lengthy overhangs at either end of the trucks can make coupling up a challenge. Some locomotives even have the equivalent of bull bars to make propelling these loads a little easier. Speeds are low and derailments endemic.
The widespread adoption of flexible wheelbase steam locomotives with eight or ten axles was Java's answer to increasing haulage power on light track. Fuel is generally bagasse, supplemented by firewood and in one case even by coconut husks, so most locomotives are fitted with tenders to carry the large quantities of low-caloric value fuel required.
Notes excerpted, with permission, from Browning, John (2008). 'Steamy Java 2008' in Light Railways, 203:October, pp16-17.
last updated: 6/11/08.