Java is Indonesia's main island and does have a network of railways. Steam in Java was really thin on the ground in 2017 and these short videos show where we found it: Olean, Pagotan, Purwodadi and Semboro. John Raby filmed these narrow-gauge steam locomotives still in action on small industrial lines which you can see in this 4 part series. Credits: John Raby

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Java's  narrow steam locomotives

2017

This video was made in Semboro. We were expecting a steam charter with No. 29 but this had failed on its last outing and no-one had thought to fix the problem before our visit. As a result, we were faced with hours of waiting to see if they could get the injector working - which they couldn’t. So, instead of wasting the time, we went to see the fireless locos at work bringing cane wagons to the mill train unloader and also borrowed one of them - No. 2 - to run on various tracks around the mill hauling ash wagons, bagged sugar wagons and v-skips. Credits: John Raby

Semboro

This video is about Olean in 2017. Steam locomotive No. 4 Semeru was available for a charter and having dumped the new tourist carriage pretending to be a second tender, we rode out with the empties in the morning. Being a charter, we also brought the empties back late morning along with a permanent way crew and a set of points. In the afternoon, we watched No. 4 go out light engine to the fields north of Duwit to the west of the mill. The remaining field lines at Olean are very limited and the state of them meant we could only go so far with the steam loco and full cane wagons were ferried to the loco to make a short train which we followed back towards the mill. For Olean, this charter worked quite well and I wonder why we didn’t chase the train until closer to the mill as the spark effects were just beginning and might have got better. Olean’s field lines are in terminal decline and what in the 1990s required a fleet of 4 steam and 2 small diesels can now be handled by 3 small diesels one of which is required as the mill shunter. Credits: John Raby

Olean

This video was made in 2017 in Pagotan. In 2017, only the 3 fireless steam locos 6, 7 & 8 were left along with a couple of small diesels to shunt the mill yard and move cane from the truck yard. The fireless locos were originally converted from powerful conventional 0-10-0T locos designed to shunt the former weigh bridge which was down a slope. Initially, the conversions used the original boilers but they now have new fireless boilers which should make them more efficient. These locos are now among the very last steam locos operating in Java sugar mills with Purwodadi as the only mill using normal steam locos. Credits: John Raby

Pagotan

This video was made in Purwodadi. Credits: John Raby

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