Pangkalan Soesoe

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tagsplace, town, harbour, colonial, dutch, aceh, buitenbezittingen, tramway, areo-baai-plannen, petroleum, tamiang, oostkust-van-sumatra, achehnese, bataafsche-petroleum-mij, deli-spoor, atjeh-tram, oil
aliasesPangkalan Soesoe, Pangkalan Susu, Pengkalan Susu, the junction at Pangkalan Soesoe, Aroebaai oil port, Atjeh tram terminus, Pangkalan Soesoe harbor

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Pangkalan Soesoe (modern Pangkalan Susu) was a town and oil-shipping port on the Aroebaai at the northern extremity of the Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra, serving both as the southeastern terminus of the Atjeh-tram (narrow gauge) and as the principal shipment point for petroleum from the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij fields in the Langsa–Rantau Pandjang area of Atjeh. The port’s development was intimately tied to the Atjeh-tram extension through Tamiang, the 1908 transfer of Tamiang to Atjeh, and the longer history of the Aroe-baai-plannen. In the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s 1913 extension approvals, Pangkalan Soesoe was the central junction of the projected southern extensions of the Atjeh-tramway — the point at which the Koeala Simpang–Tamiang–Besitang line, the Besitang–Pangkalan Soesoe connecting line, and the Telok Taboeban–Pangkalan Soesoe line to Arube Bay all converged.

Geography and location

Pangkalan Soesoe lies on the Sembilan-geul (southern channel) of the Aroebaai, a broad, shallow bay north of the Besitang River mouth, sheltered by Pulau Sembilan and Pulau Koempai. The bay’s two deep channels — north and south of the islands — provide the only good natural anchorages on the northern Oostkust coast. The settlement is approximately 8 km inland from the coast via the Koeala Balbalan inlet, though the tram runs along the coast.

The 1913 junction at Pangkalan Soesoe

The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s 1917 account of the 1913 extension approvals places Pangkalan Soesoe at the central junction of the projected southern extensions of the Atjeh-tramway: the doortrekking was approved of the Atjeh-tram network from Koeala Simpang through Tamiang to Besitang, and from Pangkalan Soesoe to Telok Taboeban (on Arube Bay, with a good roadstead), while the connecting line between Besitang and Pangkalan Soesoe is also already in preparation.

The Bureau’s later account of the Cultuurraad’s deliberations on the proposed connections between the Atjeh-tram and the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij network also identifies Pangkalan Soesoe as the proposed junction for a direct connection with Pangkalan Brandan — a connection preferred by the Cultuurraad to the originally proposed direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat junction. The Bureau notes that this preference was contested: against [the Pangkalan Brandan connection] it is objected that thereby the direct connection Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat would be postponed to a still more distant future, which connection yet — in the opinion of many — will in later times prove necessary. Therefore there is now under consideration a direct connecting line from Pangkalan Brandan with Telok Taboehan [Telok Taboeban], there joining the Atjeh-net.

Petroleum and the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij

The Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij (later Shell) developed the Langsar and Rantau Pandjang oil fields in Atjeh (Tamiang region) from the 1890s. Pangkalan Soesoe was chosen as the tanker-loading port because the Aroebaai offered deeper water than the silting Pangkalan Brandan or Belawan-Deli, because the Atjeh-tram could be extended from Koeala Simpang through Tamiang to the bay, and because the bay was accessible to ocean-going tank steamers.

By 1918 the KPM had built loading jetties with large tank installations at Pangkalan Soesoe, and a regular tank-steamer service to overseas ports operated from there. The port was also designated as the future seagoing-ship terminal for the Atjeh-tram, replacing the earlier plan for a full ocean harbour at Telok Taboean — a plan that had been abandoned after the 1910 Kraus-de Jongh report in favour of improving Belawan-Deli.

Rail connections

Harbor plans and the Belawan decision

In 1905–1907 the colonial government, urged by Governor Van Heutsz (former Atjeh Governor), considered developing Telok Taboean on the Aroebaai into a full Oceanhaven for the entire Oostkust cultivation zone. The Handelsvereeniging Medan opposed this, citing the bay’s unfavorable position relative to the cultivation centers (Medan, Tebing Tinggi, Siantar). Engineer Kraus-de Jongh (1910) acknowledged Aroebaai’s technical advantages but recommended Belawan on economic grounds. The government ultimately chose to improve Belawan-Deli (Plan Nobel), and the Aroebaai ocean-harbor plan was abandoned. Pangkalan Soesoe was reduced to a steamer jetty for normal ships and tankers only — the residual fragment of the abandoned Oceaanhaven project.

Administrative role

Pangkalan Soesoe lay just south of the Besitang watershed boundary (Staatsblad [[1908 No. 604]]) separating Oostkust from Atjeh. It fell within the onderafdeeling Tamiang of Atjeh after the 1908 transfer. The post and telegraph connection to the Oostkust cultivation zone ran via the completed Atjeh-tram to Pangkalan Soesoe, then by auto over the missing Pangkalan Brandan–Besitang link.

Significance

Pangkalan Soesoe is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s 1917 account, the central junction of the 1913 extension projects of the Atjeh-tramway — the point at which the Koeala Simpang–Tamiang–Besitang line, the Besitang–Pangkalan Soesoe connecting line, and the Telok Taboeban–Pangkalan Soesoe line to Arube Bay all converge. Its strategic position made it the principal inland node of the Aroe-baai-plannen. The 1918 Oostkust volume extends the picture: Pangkalan Soesoe was the surviving operational fragment of the abandoned Van Heutsz Oceaanhaven project — the residual port that, after the 1910 Kraus-de Jongh report and the Plan Nobel decision, replaced Telok Taboean as the bay’s maritime outlet. Its double role as the Atjeh-tram terminus and the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij tanker port made it the principal hinge between the Atjeh and Oostkust petroleum and railway economies.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

Pangkalan Soesoe — modern Pangkalan Susu — is the harbour-place at which the oil of the Bataafsche Petroleum-Mij is exported, and the south-eastern terminus of the Atjeh-tram. 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 and the Atjeh-tram meet at Besitang and run together to Pangkalan Soesoe. The Atjeh-tram’s main line thus runs from Oelèë Lheuë to Pangkalan Soesoe — 495 kilometres — with two short side-lines: Langsa-Koeala Langsa (9 km) and Beureunoen-Lam Meulo (5 km).

Account from J. Roest (1916) — the choice of Pangkalan Soesoe, 1915

J. Roest’s article De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (1916) names Pangkalan Soesoe — about halfway between Besitang and Telok Taboehan, where both the Atjeh-tram and the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij would have a station — as the harbour site chosen in 1915 in place of the deserted project at Telok Taboehan. The deciding grounds, in Roest’s argument, were negative and positive: at Telok Taboehan all would have been built in an uninhabitable wilderness needing expensive sanitation, while at Pangkalan Soesoe the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij already had an extensive establishment with a jetty and a settled trade and shipping.

The new harbour design was simpler than the one originally made for Telok Taboehan and easily capable of extension; the lines of the Atjeh tram and the company would each join the lines of the storage sheds separately. For its personnel houses the government had, in the previous design, looked to the island Poeloe Sembilan. The roadbed of the stretch Pangkalan Soesoe–Telok Taboehan, built at a cost of f 200,000 and already complete when the change was made, went out of use; and discussions were already ongoing for surrender by the Native Self-Government of Langkat of the ground needed for the state’s works. The harbour was to serve the Tamiang plantation country to its north, at f 150,000 entered on the draft budget for 1916.

See Also

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Place on the strait of Malakka reached by a branch line from Besitang; terminus of the 1912 extension of the Atjeh-tram.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 287, 292.

Sources

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. 69–72 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).

De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), pp. 50–51, 66–67, 79–80, 93–95, 106–107. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 287, 292.

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