[navigasi.net] Museum - Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa

This Train Museum is located in a hilly town of Ambarawa, about an hour driving south from Semarang direction to Joyga. In comparison with various Train Museums I have visited abroad, this particular Museum is definitely not well maintained, except the ones which is still being used commercially. The grand looking Old Steam Trains left rusted outside, instead of putting them into a kind of hangar (under the roof), as most other train museums do.

However, the station itself is very much still looked as good as any old stations, as far as my memory could tell. Punctuality in any trains system, especially during those good old colonial days is highly respected, therefore a grand old looking clock was always presence in any station. Amazingly, it is still perfectly working. Good old stuff !

	[navigasi.net] Museum - Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa

The station was build in the year 1873, during the Koningen Willem I and it has the necessary bits and pieces, such as waiting room, as in any other good old stations. Old shifting gears and communication gadgets are also displayed and if we turn our mind back into those days, all the ancient looking gadgets worked as good as any state of the arts computer these days, if not better. The station is no longer functioning to serve the publics and the rails does not go anywhere anymore.

However, in those colonial days, these trains traveled back and forth in a rather hilly terrains, serving passengers and carrying produce to the many plantations estates around the area, therefore it equipped with "gears", that were installed in the middle of the rails, in order to be able to climb up the hills.

	[navigasi.net] Museum - Museum Kereta Api Ambarawa

These days, however, one of the old engines is used primarily to satisfy the tourists curiosity, who like to feel how is the traveling in those good old days might be. The Museum put up a price tag of some 3.5 Million Rupiah (approximately around USD 400.-) for a trip with The Old Grand Dad dragging two equally ancient looking passenger wagons, for a maximum of 40 people. The journey into the history, from the Museum to a village called Bedono, around 20 kilometers and back, takes approximately 2 hours.

This old museum with its old stuffs is apparently also popular for a so called pre wedding photography especially amongst the ethnic Chinese. While others happily uses the platform to walk the dog.