De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai

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tagsdocument, book, journal-article, dutch, colonial, railway, tramway, east-coast-sumatra, aceh, aroebaai
aliasesThe railway connection between Deli, Atjeh and the Aru Bay, Roest 1916, J. Roest on the Aru Bay railway, De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli Atjeh en de Aroebaai (1916)

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De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (The railway connection between Deli, Atjeh and the Aru Bay) was a Dutch colonial journal article by J. Roest, published in the Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur (Journal for Home Administration), volume XLIX, part 6, at Batavia in December 1916. Dated at Weltevreden on 4 December 1915, the article reviewed the long controversy over how the Atjeh-tram (the government steam tramway of Atjeh) should be joined to the network of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij (Deli Railway Company) and where the seaport of the connected system should be built on the Aru Bay.

Background of the article

Roest wrote the article as a sequel to his own earlier piece, Belawanhaven en Atjeh-tram (Belawan harbour and the Atjeh tram), which had appeared in the December 1912 issue of the same journal. In between, the question of the Atjeh–Deli railway connection had come much nearer to a solution, and Roest summarised and judged the events that had led to the state of affairs at the end of 1915.

The central dispute was the choice of the harbour. The Government had chosen Telok Taboehan on the Aru Bay as the end point of the Atjeh tram and the future coastal harbour for Tamiang, motivating the choice by the existing traffic in the Aru Bay. The former member of the Local Council of the plantation region, Schadee — a former administrator of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij — argued in an open letter to Beyerman that the Minister had been wrongly informed: the existing import and export trade of Tamiang was not seated in the Aru Bay but at Pangkalan Brandan, so that a new harbour at Telok Taboehan had no justification in present traffic and little certainty for the future.

What the article records

Roest’s article preserves, in particular:

  • the argument of Schadee that the depth of the Sembilangeul (the southern entrance of the Aru Bay) had never drawn shipping away from the existing harbour places, and that the expected shift of trade from Pangkalan Brandan to Telok Taboehan was unlikely;
  • the objection that the Langsa harbour, already connected by tram with Kwala Simpang, rather than Telok Taboehan, would profit from any growth of the Atjeh plantation enterprises in the north;
  • the cost comparison between the rival connection lines: the line from the junction station Pematang Pandjang to Pangkalan Brandan (8 kilometres, estimated at f 300,000) against the line Besitang–Tandjong Slamat (30 kilometres, f 1,450,000), and the proposal, traced by the army engineers (Genie), from Besitang to Telok Taboehan (f 510,000);
  • the proceedings of the Cultuurraad (Cultivation Council), notably the motion of Schadee of 26 September 1912, the amendment of Beyerman, and the debate of 20 February 1913, at which the connection with Pangkalan Brandan was preferred to that with Tandjong Slamat by 28 votes to 1;
  • the Government decisions of 17 June 1913 No. 59 and 16 October 1913 No. 25, granting funds for the continuation of the Atjeh steam tram from Kwala Simpang to the boundary between Tamiang and Langkat, and from that boundary to Besitang, while the Aru Bay plan was maintained;
  • the judgement of Governor Van der Plas of the East Coast of Sumatra, that a parallel line through new country could never harm the plantation region and that a good harbour such as Telok Taboehan mattered more to the hinterland than a bad one such as Pangkalan Brandan;
  • the eventual change of plans in 1915: after the hopeful results of the suction dredger Java in the Belawan channel, the grand scheme for a first-class harbour at Telok Taboehan was set aside; the harbour works on the Aru Bay were moved from Telok Taboehan to Pangkalan Soesoe, where the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij had a large establishment with a jetty, and f 150,000 was placed on the draft budget for 1916 to begin the work.

Outcome

By the end of 1915 the Government had, for the time being, given up a state-built connection between the Atjeh tram and the Deli railway; the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij would build its long-desired line Besitang–Pangkalan Brandan itself, and Roest doubted whether the short through connection Besitang–Tandjong Slamat would be realised within the foreseeable future, or perhaps ever. Roest defended the Government’s course: through traffic was preferable to transhipment, and the interests of the Deli Company had to give way to the general interest if a state connection were ever required.

Significance

The article is a primary source for the history of the railways of northern Sumatra, for the disputes between the Cultuurraad and the Government over colonial transport policy, and for the early history of the ports of the Aru Bay, Pangkalan Brandan, Belawan and Langsa — the ports through which the plantation economy of the East Coast of Sumatra and of Atjeh was connected to the world market. To the history of Atjeh it is important as the background to the northern extension of the Atjeh-tram towards Tamiang and the later Atjeh Railways (Atjehsche Staatsspoorwegen).

See Also

Source

De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai, door J. Roest, in Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur, Deel XLIX, Afl. 6. Batavia: Vereeniging, December 1916, pp. 464–478. Dated Weltevreden, 4 December 1915. OCR file: 20260801_230453_DLP-148-De_spoorwegverbinding_tusschen_Deli_Atjeh_en_de_Aroebaai_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

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