Telok Taboeban (also rendered Telok Taboehan) was a town and roadstead on Arube Bay that served, in the 1913 extension approvals of the Atjeh-tramway, as the projected terminus of the line from Pangkalan Soesoe — the line that, together with the Koeala Simpang–Tamiang–Besitang extension and the Besitang–Pangkalan Soesoe connecting line, would form the Arube Bay outlet of the entire Atjeh-tram network.
Account from De Buitenbezittingen (1917) — Telok Taboeban
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the 1913 extension approvals places Telok Taboeban at the maritime terminus of the Aroe-baai-plannen: by the G. Bn. of 17 June 1913 No. 59, 16 October 1913 No. 25, and 8 November 1913 No. 40, “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 account of the Aroe-baai-plannen and of the contested relationship between the Atjeh-tram extension and the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij also identifies Telok Taboeban as the proposed junction for a direct connection with Pangkalan Brandan — a connection that the Bureau reports as “now under consideration” (thans in overweging) in preference to the originally proposed direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat junction.
Significance
Telok Taboeban is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the maritime anchor of the Aroe-baai-plannen — the roadstead on Arube Bay at which the Atjeh-tramway would, after the 1913 extensions, finally meet the sea. The construction of the line to Telok Taboeban was the linchpin of the project to develop Arube Bay as a deep-water outlet for the Atjehnese export trade.
Account from J. Roest (1916) — the design and rejection of the great harbour, 1912–1915
J. Roest’s article De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (1916) gives the place at the height of its promise: the Government had chosen it as the end point of the Atjeh-tram and the new coast harbour of Tamiang, against the judgement of Schadee that existing traffic was seated in the river of Pangkalan Brandan and that the expectation of traffic shifting to a new place was groundless. The army chief of construction defended the eastern trace to it as the technically better approach for connection with Brandan; the site had, not far from the coast, water deep enough for the ships coming in by the Sembilan channel and a water surface broad enough for their turning, sheltered by the opposite island Poeloe Sembilan.
For the personnel houses of the projected harbour, preliminary talks had been opened for a site on the island Sembilan — part of grounds leased out in concession by the Native Self-Government of Langkat to the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij for oil-winning; and f 150,000 stood on the draft budget for 1916 for a beginning of the work. Against it Roest’s later pages record the accumulated arguments: the low, marshy coast, far from any settlement, with no expectation of Chinese traders and native labour in short time; the expensive sanitation works needed before it could be lived in; the lifeless stretch to Pangkalan Soesoe over which all its loads must pass with none taken up along the way. All this, and the success of the dredger Java at Belawan, decided the change of 1915: the harbour installation was not named more for Telok Taboehan but for Pangkalan Soesoe. The roadbed of the stretch Pangkalan Soesoe–Telok Taboehan, already built at a cost of f 200,000, would fall away unused.
See Also
- Atjeh-tram
- Aroe-baai-plannen
- Aroebai
- Pangkalan Soesoe
- Besitang
- Tamiang
- Koeala Simpang
- Pangkalan Brandan
- Tandjoeng Slamat
- Deli-Spoorweg-Maatschappij
- Atjeh’s Onderhoorigheden
- 1913
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”).