Malang is a town located at the mountains to the south of Surabaya. It's squeezed between mountains and volcanoes! It used to be a nice and cool place, although nowaday it's hot and crowded, due to severe pollution.
The railway traffic is mostly dominated by passengers train. And diesel-hydraulic locomotives once dominated Malang's railway traffic, as huge tractive effort is needed in the mountain. Although super powerful diesel-electric locomotives (like GE CC203/U20C) gradually replacing them.
At the moment, I only have two pictures of Malang area. I might expand this gallery, if anyone could gave me some assistance.
And just for the note, the railway line around Malang are occasionally disturbed by volcanic activites around Malang.
The line between Malang and Bitar was once broken off, when the nearby railway bridge was washed away by lava flows in 1989 Mt. Kelud Eruption.
At the moment, the nearby Mount Semeru began to show some activity. So, there is a chance that some bridges would likely to be awashed by lava flows.
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A CC203 working on 'Jatayu' Express train in Malang's Central Station. The 'Jatayu' Express train is the only Air Conditioned train that works between Surabaya and Malang. Unfortunatley, due to poor patronage and expensive operational cost, the train was disbanded a few years ago. Note: This train is actually moving backward, as it pushed the passenger cars to nearby shed. The train was in the line in front of me a few minutes before this photo was taken. |
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A BB301 diesel-hydraulic loco pulls an unidentified economic-class passenger train, from Malang to Blitar. This type of loco once dominated the traffic in Malang area. Blitar is a birth and resting place of Sukarno, the first Indonesian President. He was born and raised there, and when he died in 1970, he was buried there. My father said that the road between Surabaya and Blitar was jammed by people who attend his funeral's procession. Including the road in the picture. |
