Wifi isn’t much good, however.
The Madiun area has six sugar mills and we began by visiting Purwodadie. In spite of his insistence that he knew where it was, the taxi driver took us to Rejosaie where we decided to photograph the O&K locomotive that has been newly displayed outside the gate.
We continued to Purwodadie where two steam locomotives were working cane from the transhipment yard to the mill, across the busy highway and the bridge. There were also two diesels in use, one taking cane to the carrier and another on empties. Future prospects here look quite good with another steam loco serviceable (or close to it) and a fourth having been put back together since 2012.
We then travelled on to Soedhono on a local minibus. Here the steam loco number 1 is serviceable but hasn’t operated for a while. Schoema diesels 3 and 4 were working in the cane yard. On the sugar storage run, Schoema 5 was hauling the trucks from the packing area but the shunting at the sugar shed was being done a by a tractor. Rare Henschel diesel number 1 was on empties.
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| Remnants of past glories |
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| Henschel diesel |
We travelled back to Madiun by airconditioned bus and then took a taxi back to Rejosarie, arriving there at 3.30pm. The two little O&K diesels SLAWI and BROMO were operating at the carrier while Japanese diesel AGUNG was working up at the transloader. The vintage O&K diesel MALABAR was in the shed. The three O&Ks and three of the steam locos have all been painted in a new lighter green livery. The three steamers involved, SLAMET, MERAPI and ARJUNA are all said to be serviceable and available to run if arrangements are made.
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| ARJUNA |
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| My favourite Java diesel - MALABAR |
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| O and K twins - BROMO . . . |
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| . . . and KAWA |
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| AGUNG in the old livery |
We then ordered a taxi to come and pick us up and it took 45
minutes to arrive so we got back to the hotel well after dark.
This was a very successful day.
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