IRONI KEDUNGJATI
This project started with the story of my late grandfather in mid-2006. He told me a story about his chilhood in Kedungjati, a train station southwest of Purwodadi, Central Java that night. The story then built my imagination about a large station, crowded with passengers and also passing trains. However, the current appearance of Kedungjati is quite a contrast to the story when I came here for the first time in 2018. The station corridor looks dim and quiet, there is no crowd as described. The grandeur of the building is still quite pronounced, with indic accents, red brick ornaments, and steel arches on the sides. Meanwhile, piles of rusty iron rails and bearings, cobweb-infested corners of the waiting room, and rotting chairs are another sight.
Kedungjati had an important role in the early existence of railways in Indonesia. The inauguration of this station in 1868 was a manifestation of the ambition of NISM, the Dutch East Indies railway company who wanted to connect Semarang with Vorstenlanden (now Surakarta) by train to make residents easier to travel and send agricultural products. Instead of going through the city center of Purwodadi in the east, the route plan was made further towards the southeast, passing through teak forests, limestone mountains, and suburban areas such as Tanggungharjo, Kedungjati, Juwangi, Gundih, Gemolong, and ended up in Solo Balapan.
This choice is not without reason. The Dutch also wanted to use trains for the mobility of their soldiers. Kedungjati was later chosen as the branch point of the route to the KNIL (Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) base in Ambarawa. This route continues to Secang which ends in Parakan (Temanggung) and Yogyakarta. This condition makes Kedungjati a transit point for trains from Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Magelang, Temanggung, and Semarang.
The crowd lasted until 1975, when the eruption of Merapi caused a flood of cold lava that hit Magelang and then cut off the Krasak Railway Bridge. The train route from Yogyakarta was completely decommissioned a year later. Kedungjati is now quiet. Currently, there are still trains from Surakarta and Semarang, but most of them are now running directly due to the lack of passengers boarding from there.
