Gempolkerep Field Train, East Java, Indonesia

[@Gulf-2-Europe]

Sir you have great collection. I subscribed your channel because you visited my hometown MALAKWAL, PAKISTAN.... Keep sharing

[@puertoricotrashtrucks.]

excellent job

[@arbertstanley]

Very good

[@theunderrated86]

Do you have any idea when Gempolkerep closed their field lines? And whereabouts in the mill did the field line trains entered the mill? Was it on the north side of the mill?

[@rosssadler3199]

This is probably a difficult question to answer, because I was told by a mill official in the 1980s that the locos actually ran to three field transfer stations, from where they picked up the cane. I never actually visited these, but I suspect they might have been a bit like the situation which prevailed at the time in the Madiun area - the cane was trucked to the transfer yard, where it was loaded onto loris. So the real colonial era field lines might well have closed before then. There were at least two entries for field trains - the one in this video and the other at about 90 degrees to this one, further down the yard. Interestingly this one ran over an antique bridge, built in Holland, decades before the mill would have had a tramway using steam locos.

[@theunderrated86]

@@rosssadler3199 Thanks for the answer Ross. The 'antique' bridge that you mentioned is still there, and is now used for motorcycle shortcut access after the field lines had closed. I'm still wondering where the transfer yard used to be as I had a search in the perimeter of the mill and I couldn't find it. In terms of field line closure, I know a person who claimed he grew up on the employee houses on the inside of the mill. He claimed to have been on steam locos of Gempolkerep up to the mill, and he said there used to be an underpass with the State Railways. The underpass is there, and I have found it, but I just want to check if his story of riding a steam loco way out to the fields in the 80s decade is true or not.

[@rosssadler3199]

Very interesting update and thanks. I've probably confused you a bit as regards the field transfer yards about which I was talking. They would have been at least several kilometres from the mill and not anywhere adjacent to the mill itself. Cane was trucked here and transferred into loris, from where the locomotives would haul it to the mill. This sort of 'part-way' transfer was in fashion at a few mills for some time - both Poerwodadi and Kanigoro had it operating for a few seasons in the 1980s, as did Lestari around 1979, but they gave up on it very quickly and built a 'terminal' beside the mill. The Luttermoller at Kebon Agung also serviced a similar field transfer yard, until someone realized the cane could be trucked all the way to the mill.@@theunderrated86