Ambarawa Railway Museum

The Ambarawa Railway Museum (Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa, officially named Indonesian Railway Museum by the Indonesian Railway Company) is a museum located in Ambarawa in Central Java, Indonesia. The museum preserves around 21 steam locomotives and focuses on tourism train tours hauled by 3 operational steam engines (both are rack locomotives and a 4-4-0 two-cylinder compound steam engine) and a hydraulic diesel engine, using the remains of the closing of the 3 ft railway line.

Museum building and location
Ambarawa was a city that was used for military purposes during the Dutch colonial administration and not far from this station, there's Fort Willem I, known as Benteng Pendem by locals. This station was named Willem I because it was built in honor of the services of the King of the Netherlands William I. The colonial government of the Dutch East Indies under the command of Governor-General L. A. J. Baron Sloet van de Beele ordered the construction of a new railway station to facilitate the mobilization of Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) troops from and to Semarang. On 21 May 1873, the Ambarawa railway station was built on a 127,500 m² land. It was finished at the same time as the Kedungjati–Bringin–Tuntang–Ambarawa line by Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij (NIS).

The station building consists of two main buildings for waiting room and the station master room.

The Willem I railway station was originally a transshipment point between the 4 ft gauge branch from Kedungjati to the northeast and the 3 ft gauge line onward towards Yogyakarta via Magelang to the south. It is still possible to see that the two sides of the station were built to accommodate different-sized trains.

On 8 April 1976, the Ambarawa railway station was officially converted into the Ambarawa Railway Museum by the governor of Central Java Province at that time Supardjo Rustam. The museum preserves the steam locomotives, which were then coming to the end of their useful lives when the 3 ft gauge railways of the Indonesian State Railway (the Perusahaan Negara Kereta Api, PNKA) was closed. These are parked in the open air next to the original station.

In 2010, the building of Ambarawa Railway Museum was made a heritage building.

Railway line
The construction line between Ambarawa–Samarang (or called Semarang today) was a package with Samarang NIS––– line. In 1869, after Gundih, the NIS continued the line to and ended at Ambarawa. Finally, Samarang–Vorstenlanden (now Surakarta and Jogjakarta) and to Ambarawa lines were completed on 21 May 1873. After that, the NIS continued to build rack line to Secang with the line passing through the steep contours and difficult topography in the mountainous area. This line connected the Dutch East Indies military stronghold in Magelang city with Fort Willem I in Ambarawa, and it was finished on 1 February 1905. The 3 ft gauge line towards Djocja Toegoe (runs roughly south-west from Ambarawa) was of particular interest because it contained sections of rack railway between Jambu and Secang which have 6.5% gradient, the only such operation in Java. This line beyond closed in the early 1970s after it was damaged in an earthquake, but had already lost most of its passenger traffic to buses on the parallel road. The line from (runs east initially from Ambarawa) survived into the middle 1970s but saw very little traffic near the end, not least because it was far quicker to travel more directly by road to Semarang. The presence of the rack line meant that there was probably never much through traffic from Semarang to Yogyakarta.

Services
The museum is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in a week. Currently, there are 3 kinds of heritage tourism trains running, the excursion trains run on Ambarawa–– (mountainous rack line) pulled by B25 02 or B25 03 and Ambarawa– (flat line) pulled by B51 12. While, the vintage train pulled by hydraulic-diesel D301 24 also on Ambarawa-Tuntang line, could be rented. The excursion trains are rented and can be booked around 2–3 weeks before departure, with an exceptional vintage train runs regularly (pulled by hydraulic-diesel D301 24) with the ticket price listed. Admission to the museum is divided into 3 categories :

1. For kids (3-12 years old) and students : Rp 10.000,00 (US$0.67)

2. Adults (local) and scholars : Rp 20.000 (US$1.34)

3. Foreigners : Rp 30.000 (US$2.01)

Collection
The museum has a collection of 26 steam locomotives from several railway companies of the former Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) which were acquired by Djawatan Kereta Api (DKA) or Department of Railways of the Republic of Indonesia. Currently four locomotives are operational. Other collections of the museum include old telephones, Morse telegraph equipment, old bells and signals equipment, and some antique furniture.

Operational
Some of the operational steam locomotives are the two German-built, Esslingen B25 classes 0-4-2RT B25 02 and B25 03 (ex-NIS 232 and 233), which are from the original fleet of 5 supplied to the line more than 100 years ago (a third locomotive, the B25 01 (ex-NIS 231) is preserved as static display at a park in the town nearby). The 0-10-0RT E10 class, PNKA E10 60, which was originally locale to West Sumatra in the 1960s for coal transports, was brought to Java for repair and later returned again as excursion train at Sawahlunto, and a Mogul Hartmann 2-6-0T C1218 (ex-SS 457) which was restored to working order in 2006, but transferred to Solo to working as excursion train as the request of Surakarta city government, named Sepur Kluthuk Jaladara. The museum also have a small diesel switcher D300 class 0-8-0D D300 23, previously based at Cepu, an old UH-295 crane from Semarang, and the restored Hanomag 4-4-0 two-cylinder compound DKA B51 12 (ex-SS Class 612) worked for excursion train on Ambarawa–Tuntang line.

Static display
Reference Disclaimer: Photos shown below may not represent the current condition or layout.