The last of ten stations was provisionally handed over and returned to service. Yogyakarta station is a major station in Central Java and the last station on the SLDT Ph1 Project. The station is controlled by a Siemens Relay interlocking MIS 801 and was modified by our people and our Subcontractors to allow a double line connection from the other nine Westrace controlled stations.The handover was particularly important to be completed early this week because of the annual Lebaran holidays (a time when most Indonesian people travel for holidays back to their original home villages). Over 2 million people will move by train through Central Java over the next few weeks so Yogyakarta had to be back in service.
This final station handover is culmination of many, many years of hard work by all the teams involved with the Indonesian projects. This includes the teams in Indonesia, both local staff and expats as well as the local subcontractors, who have fought through tsunami, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, bird flu etc on top of the usual difficulties of work in Central Java.
The support provided from Australia by 'Team WMH' also should be singled out for special praise as well as all those who travelled to site from the signalling and control centres. Rail blog would like to send out a special mention to the system trainers (who, by the nature of the on site training program, ate far more than their fair share of "Chicken and Rice").
In fact all those who have worked on and supported this very important project both in Australia and abroad have shown commitment, determination, skill and drive to see the design, construction and commissioning and handover phases successfully completed - well done.
It is expected that more works/projects will follow in Indonesia, furthering our commitment to the Indonesian Railways. We have maintained a full time presence in Indonesia since 1993 and hope to continue this successful relationship with Indonesia for many years and many projects to come.
Although this was the last station handover on the SLDT Ph1, it is by no means the end of the project. We still have many design and site activities to conclude including the final connections to the centralised traffic control (CTC) systems.
Additionally there is a 2 years warranty support period, so continuing support will be required from many departments and individuals within IRG.
