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Bandung Area

 

 

 

Padalarang

 

To the West of Bandung, there is a small town called Padalarang. Despite its size, the town has a significance of being a junction city, where the railway line from Bandung separate.

One of the line goes to North West, where it eventually joined the North Coast line at Cikampek. Whereas the other goes to West where it goes to Cianjur, Sukabumi, Bogor and eventually rejoined the previous line in Jakarta.

The later line is a twisty and difficult line to pass: it has several sharp curves which prevent six axle locomotives to pass through. It also has the steepest (non rack) ralway line in Indonesia (1 in 25 metres), which is why the railway line is never been favorable by Imperial Dutch and Indonesian state railway.

And to compund the problem, the tunnel on the line had recently been collapsed and, at the time of writing, remain in collapsed condition.

Whereas the other railway line is the busiest railway line. It sees almost 20 trains every day, most of them are first class train, and it also has the highest railway bridge in Indonesia.

And when the President of Indonesia came to Bandung he/she would usually arrived by train, through this line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A CC203 pulling a Parahyangan train away from Padalarang, bound to Jakarta.

In the background, Padalarang Station is visible, as well as one CC201 with economic class train on its back.

The railway line in the foreground is the starting point of the line to Cianjur and Sukabumi.

A CC203 travelled on curved railway bridges near Padalarang.

Another view of the train.

The white car with green stripes is actually belonged to 'Turangga' train. It was loaned to Parahyangan train when the lower occupancy rate at 'Turangga' permitting this car to be placed on 'Parahyangan'.

CC201 pulling Parahyangan train, is photographed on a curve just outside Padalarang.

The driver of this train thought I was too close to the track, so he kept blowing the horn to warn me.

Another view of the previous curve, this time it was taken from the hill above the track.

The loco is CC201, pulling an economic class train.

The branch to Cianjur is on the hills in the background, whereas the road to Jakarta is on the bottom of the valley.

Early morning view of the curve. And for some mysterious reason, the picture is partially burned.

A CC203 is seen working on Argo Gede train, although the cars are actually belonged to Turangga train.

Nowaday, since the introduction of Harina cars, these cars has been downgraded to Parahyangan train.

The same view, unless this time there are no disturbance in the picture.

The photo was taken several months after the above photo, which mentioning why the ricefield looked very dry.