Monorail A monorail is a Rail transport, railway in which the track consists of a single rail or beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurately, the term refers to the style ...

s were used to transport

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

from the forests of

Central Java Central Java (, ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogya ...

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

(now

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

) located in the mountains to the rivers.

History

In 1908 and 1909, the forester H. J. L. Beck built a manually operated monorail of limited but sufficient capacity for the transport of small timber and

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not heavily processed, and is in some sort of firelog, recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellet fuel, pellets. ...

in the northern

Surabaya Surabaya is the capital city of East Java Provinces of Indonesia, province and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern corner of Java island, on the Madura Strai ...

forest district. In later years, this idea was further developed by L. A. van de Ven, who was a forester in the Grobogan forest district (north of Poerwodadi ) around 1908–1910.Ch. S. Lugt: ''Het boschbeheer in Nederlandsch-Indië.'' 1933, S. 75–76. Zitiert in: Rob van de Ven Renardel de Lavalette
''De Monorail van Grobogan.''
/ref> He devoted himself to the planning, construction and operation of monorails,Augusta de Wit: ''Een bevloeiingswerk''. In: ''Natuur en menschen in Indië'', 1921, page 125. First published in ''Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, Avondblad A,'' 30 November 1911. Referenced in: Rob van de Ven Renardel de Lavalette
''De Monorail van Grobogan.''
/ref> especially monorails with larger capacity for heavier transport. His consideration was that the construction and maintenance of monorails in hilly terrain, apart from saving one rail, would be considerably cheaper than the usual two-rail tracks, such as those of the

Cepu Forest Railway The Cepu Forest Railway (officially branded as Loco Tour Cepu) is a narrow gauge light forest railway, logging railway that runs through teak plantations to the northwest of the town of Cepu (town), Cepu, in Cepu, Blora, Cepu district, on the bou ...

. As a result, monorails were built by plantation operators and

wood processing Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing. The major wo ...

companies throughout the mountains of Central Java. There were monorail lines in Grobogan, Undakan (in

Kudus Regency Kudus () is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency () in Central Java province in Indonesia. Its capital is the town of Kudus, Kudus, Kudus. It covers 425.15 km2 and is thus the smallest regency on Java Island in area, and it had a population of ...

), Monggot (in Grobogan Regency), and Cepu (in

Blora Regency Blora () is a regency in the northeastern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. Its capital is the town of Blora. The regency is located in the easternmost part of Central Java and borders the Bengawan Solo River and the East Java provin ...

) forest administrations, as well as in Djombang-Babat forest administrations in

East Java East Java (, , ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost third of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean border its northern ...

. In 1919/1920, however, the hand-operated monorails gradually disappeared and were replaced by

narrow-gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter cur ...

s with

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

s as forest utilization changed.''Pernah ada Monorel hutan (forestry monorail) di Jawa.''
Ziarah Spoor, 13 December 2012.

Operation

The metal rail of the monorail at Babat (Lage) was laid at a height of about 3 metres on sawn-off tree stumps or on buried posts. On the rail, W-shaped carriages with an extremely low centre of gravity were moved by gravity or by hand. Even in the sharpest curves the swinging carriages could not get out of balance. Even in the rainy season, when the forest roads turned into swamps, the timber transport went undisturbed at lofty heights on the sawn-off trees. Monorails in Central Java (9).jpg, Typical monorail rolling stock Monorails in Central Java (1).jpg, Monorail at Grobogan Monorails in Central Java (6).jpg, Monorail for or approx 5 tonnes timber Monorails in Central Java (3).jpg, Monorail near Tjepoe (Cepu)

References

{{Commons category, Monorails in Indonesia Monorails in Indonesia Rail transport in Indonesia Transport in Central Java