Fate of the Iron Necklace

Since Governor General Baron Sloet van de Beele officially launched the construction of the first railway in the Dutch East Indies in 1864, the railroad network continued to grow during colonial times. The length of the tracks exceeded 7,000 kilometers. Railroad construction created a thriving economy and changed public life, which became centred around railroad traffic. The role played by the railroad—which the Javananese King Jayabaya mentioned in his prophecies seven centuries prior to its existence as an ‘iron necklace’—gradually declined as the Indonesian government focused more on developing roadways. Thousands of kilometers of track were neglected. One thing which has continued, however, is the story of the lives of the people living next to the tracks. Recently, through a government infrastructure construction policy, President Joko Widodo plans to revive old railway routes and build new tracks. To commemorate 150 years of Indonesian railroads, Tempo takes a look at those old railroad routes, as well as the new tracks which have been built since Dutch colonial times.