The Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij (Deli Railway Company, abbreviated D.S.M.) was the Dutch colonial railway operator whose network, centred on the Cultuurgebied (plantation belt) of Sumatra’s East Coast, was destined — by the time of De Buitenbezittingen in 1917 — to be linked to the Atjeh-tram at Besitang and so to draw the young European cultures of Langsa and Tamiang into direct rail communication with the great tobacco and rubber districts around Medan, Belawan, and the Pangkalan Brandan oil-refinery. The Company operated two distinct networks: the Deli-spoorweg — the 92 K.M. main railway line from Belawan-Deli via Medan to Deli Tua — and the Deli-tram — the tramway network that, by 1913, extended 170 K.M. southward to Tebing Tinggi and northward to Pangkalan Brandan. De Buitenbezittingen treats the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij as the southern counterpart of the Atjeh-tram at the Aroebaai: at the haven of Pangkalan Soesoeh “de aldaar aanwezige haven-accommodatie wordt aangesloten aan het net de Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij van en aan dat van de Atjeh train,” while it also borders the establishment of the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, which “reeds voor jaren te Pangkalan Soesoeh eigen steigers bouwde.”
Account from J. Roest (1916) — the company in the Aru Bay controversy
J. Roest’s chronicle De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (December 1916) depicts the company in the years 1911–1915 as the champion of its own harbour of Pangkalan Brandan against the government’s Aru Bay plans. Its former administrator Schadee, acting before the Cultuurraad, argued that the trade of Tamiang was seated in the river of the Babalan, not in the Aru Bay, that a first-class harbour at Telok Taboehan was a wager of millions on the dubious chance of the Belawan dredging failing, and that the junction at Pematang Pandjang (8 K.M., f 300,000) would serve the plantation region best.
The company itself had applied, early in 1911, for a preference for the concession of a line from Pangkalan Brandan to the Aru Bay — an application, Schadee explained, only meant as proof of goodwill until the Government’s plans for the Atjeh tram should be fixed, and hardly to be used if the Government put no price on cooperation. Roest records the prevailing outcome of the year 1915: the Government had provisionally abandoned a state-built connection between the Atjeh tram and the Deli railway, so that the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij would build its long-desired line Besitang–Pangkalan Brandan itself; and that it could largely neutralise the damage the government harbour in the Aru Bay might cause itself and Pangkalan Brandan by its own projected connecting lines. J. Roest nevertheless stood by the position — first voiced by Governor Van der Plas — that the interest of the state company in connection drew narrower than the general interest it served.
Network History
The company took over the 1883 Deli-Maatschappij concession (granted 1873) and built the original 92 K.M. spoorweg (main railway) from the anchorage at Belawan-Deli via Medan to Deli Tua, with a zijlijntje (branch line) to Timbang-Langkat (Binjai), completed in 1888. By 1890 the Medan–Perbaoengan zijtak (branch) was opened, while a tramlijn (tram line) continued from Binjai to Selesai. After a pause, a 1902–1907 hervatting (resumption) of construction extended the network southward to Tebing Tinggi and northward to Pangkalan Brandan — the small export place south of the Aroe-baai. By 1913 the company operated a 92 K.M. spoorweg and a 170 K.M. trambaan (tramway), with a maatschappelijk kapitaal (company capital) of f 4,000,000 paying a 10% dividend in 1913 and 15% in 1914.
The Deli-tram Network
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij’s network notes that the original 1888 spoorweg — from the anchorage at Belawan-Deli via Medan to Deli Tua, with a zijlijntje to Timbang-Langkat (Binjai) — was extended in the 1902–1907 phase with tramwegen (tramways): “the existing spoorwegstelsel was extended in all directions with tramwegen, which now reach southward to Tebing Tinggi and northward to Pangkalan Brandan, the small export place south of the Aroe-baai, with its shallow roadstead.”
The Bureau’s statistical tables for the Deli-tram show that the network’s route length grew from 115 K.M. in 1904 to 170 K.M. in 1913, with the aanlegkapitaal (construction capital) rising from f 5,857,000 in 1904 to f 10,915,000 in 1913. The Deli-tram’s growth is, in the Bureau’s framing, the principal private-sector counterpart to the Gouvernement’s Atjeh-tramway — the two networks together forming the principal railway infrastructure of northern Sumatra.
The 1913 Aroe-baai Conflict
The Bureau’s account of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913 places the Deli-Spoorweg-Maatschappij at the centre of the commercial conflict over the Atjeh-tramway’s southern extension. The Bureau notes that the uitbreidingsplannen (extension plans) of the Atjeh-tram formed a “dreigende aanval” (threatening attack) on the “tot dusverre onaangetaste verkeers-monopolie” (hitherto unscathed transport monopoly) the company possessed in the bloeiende, veel exporteerende streken (flourishing, much-exporting regions) of the East Coast. The company’s “krachtige verzet” (vigorous resistance) to the direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat junction — together with the parallel opposition of the Belawan-Deli and Pangkalan Brandan trade — led to the deferral of the direct connection in favour of a connection from Pangkalan Brandan to the Atjeh-tram. A 1913 concession (G. B. of 10 April 1913 No. 25) authorised further southward extension to Tanjung Balai and Dolok Mrawan, adding 150 K.M. of additional tramweg.
The Bureau’s account of the Aroe-baai-plannen then identifies the Deli-tram network as the principal tramway network with which the Atjeh-tramway’s southern extension was projected to connect. The Bureau notes that “a plan for further extension of the Atjeh-tram network, which was vigorously defended by various authorities, was the line via Besitang directly to Tandjoeng Slamat on the Deli-tram network” — a direct connection that would have linked the two networks at Tandjoeng Slamat. The deferral of this direct connection — and the substitution of a connection from Pangkalan Brandan to the Atjeh-tram — is the principal commercial conflict of the 1913 extension plans.
The Projected Deli–Aceh Connection
The through rail-connection from Deli to Atjeh was, in 1917, the most important infrastructural project pending on Sumatra’s east coast. The Atjeh-tram had reached Koeala Simpang — and, beyond the southern border of the gewest, Besitang — and was already “ver gevorderd” (well advanced) toward its projected terminus at Pangkalan Soesoeh on the Aroebaai. “De Deli-tram zal den aanleg van een lijn vanaf Pangkalan Brandan tot Besitang aanvangen,” the handbook noted, “zoodat over enkele jaren de Deli-Atjeh-aansluiting eindelijk tot stand zal zijn gekomen” (“The Deli-tram will begin the construction of a line from Pangkalan Brandan to Besitang, so that in a few years the Deli-Aceh connection will finally be completed”). Where the line was not yet ready, a particulieren autodienst (private motor-car service) carried passenger traffic between the two railheads; once the link was completed, the cultures of the Afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh (Department of the East Coast of Aceh) would be “economisch zeer nauw aan het groote Cultuurgebied verbonden” (economically very closely connected to the great plantation belt).
The Haven at Pangkalan Soesoeh
The Company maintained installations at Pangkalan Soesoeh, the simpler alternative to the abandoned oceaan-haven (ocean port) projected at Telok Taboean, ten km eastward. The choice of the smaller haven — dictated by the bakoe-bakoe (swampy) terrain, the cost of a road through “geheel onbewoonde niets produceerende” (entirely uninhabited, non-producing) wilderness, and the growing likelihood that Belawan-Deli would become the Oceaan-haven for the whole Oostkust — meant that the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij, the Atjeh-tram, and the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij would all share a single modest set of steigers (jetties) and quays at the head of the Aroebaai.
Significance
Although the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij lay, strictly speaking, outside the territory of the Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden (Government of Aceh and Dependencies), De Buitenbezittingen treats it as one of the formative external agencies shaping the gewest’s economy. The jonge Cultuurland (young plantation land) of Langsa and Tamiang had, in 1917, no significant port of its own; its import and export moved through the southern connection to the Deli network. Once the Deli–Atjeh-aansluiting was complete, the grootste behoeften van het koopkrachtige Cultuurgebied — the great demand of the purchasing-powerful plantation belt — would draw the Oostkust (East Coast) and Noordkust (North Coast) of Atjeh ever more tightly into the Sumatran economic system the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij had done most to construct. The Deli-tram is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the principal tramway network of the East Coast of Sumatra and the principal private-sector counterpart to the Gouvernement’s Atjeh-tramway.
Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
The Deli-spoor — the Deli Railway — was the 1.067-m gauge railway of the planting-district of the Oostkust van Sumatra, running from Medan to Belawan and northward to Besitang, where it met the Atjeh-tram in 1908. The Deli-spoor and the Atjeh-tram together gave the traveller from Kota Radja to Medan a single overland route — the first such route in the history of the gewest.
The Junction at Besitang
At Besitang the Atjeh-tram and the Deli-spoor meet, and over a common track both run to Pangkalan Soesoe — a track with three rails, because the Atjeh-tram has narrow gauge (0.75 m) and the Deli-spoor has a line-width of 1.067 m. The connection of Besitang with Pangkalan Soesoe, where the oil of the Bataafsche Petroleum-Mij is exported, is a line with three rails. The Deli-spoor sought the Aroe-baai; the Atjeh-tram, in reaching it, had to cross the boundary of its own gewest.
The Bajan Wood-Enterprise
The Deli-spoor runs a wood-cutting enterprise at Bajan on the Atjeh-tram, nineteen kilometres from Langsa, which it took over from a trading company (Bajeuën) that had originally received a permit of three to four thousand hectares. The Deli-spoor, which wished to draw its sleepers from there, then took over the whole licence for its own account. The worked wood goes south by the Atjeh-tram under a special tariff. Sleepers and telephone-poles are worked on the spot. The Deli-spoor also acquired land at Perlanaan on its Asahan-line, on which it intends to plant trees for usable wood — a forward-looking measure to ensure its sleeper-supply in the future.
Significance
The Deli-spoor is the principal railway of the planting-district of the Oostkust van Sumatra and the natural counterpart of the Atjeh-tram. The junction at Besitang in 1908 is the principal infrastructural event of the early civilian period in northern Sumatra, and the Deli-spoor’s wood-enterprise at Bajan is the principal case of its direct interest in the resources of the Atjehnese gewest.
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapters I, III, IV and XIV, ‘Inleiding’, ‘Langsa’, ‘Het hout van Langsa’ and ‘De Atjeh-tram’, pp. 5, 21–24, 97.
See Also
- 1873
- 1883
- 1888
- 1890
- 1902
- 1904
- 1907
- 1908
- 1913
- 1914
- 1917
- Afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh
- Aroe-baai
- Aroe-baai-plannen
- Aroebai
- Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Atjeh-tram
- Bajan
- Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- Bataafsche Petroleum-Mij
- Belawan
- Belawan-Deli
- Besitang
- Bindjai
- Deli-Toea
- Langsa
- Medan
- Oostkust van Sumatra
- Pangkalan Brandan
- Pangkalan Soesoe
- Pangkalan Soesoeh
- Perbaoengan
- Selesai
- Tamiang
- Tandjoeng Slamat
- Tebing Tinggi
- Telok Taboean
- Timbang-Langkat
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
Sources
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 2: Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 24–25, 27.
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 65, 71–72 (sections “De Spoor- en Tramwezen” and “De Atjeh-tram”).
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim; Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), for the Koloniaal Instituut and Handelsmuseum.