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This video was created by one of senior railfan in Indonesia with the intention for explaining the history of overnight trains in Indonesia, from the days when "Nacht-Expres" began to serve the Batavia (current name: Jakarta) - Soerabaja in mid-1930s to the present day, although sleeper trains no longer exist from 1990s due to social reasons in Indonesia (while overnight trains are still present in Indonesia, all of them are using ordinary seat coaches). In the video we could see historical footages and photographs, and even two units of former SAGL-9000 series sleeper coaches are still exists up to this day, although it has been modified into special coaches that could be reserved by public.
While sleeper trains were temporarily disappeared from Indonesia due to World War II, the Independence War and several political unrests, Indonesian Railways (at that time it ran under the name "Djawatan Kereta Api" or DKA) attempted to revive overnight train from Jakarta to Surabaya in 1961 by deploying coaches of former "Nacht-Expres" inherited from Staatsspoorwegen (SS) on the newly-operated "Bintang Fadjar" and "Bintang Sendja" express trains. But ticket price for both trains deemed to be too high for Indonesians, which caused both trains to suffer low ridership (DKA later added seat coaches to improve ridership on both trains). Unfortunately both trains enjoyed only a brief success, because they were later replaced by the famous "Bima" overnight train, using brand new steel-bodied coaches manufactured by VEB Waggonbau Görlitz in East Germany, which comprised the following types of coaches:
- DPW-9000 (Power generator, later reclassified as BP-67700 in 1986)
- SAGW-9000 (1st class sleeper, later reclassified as KT-67700 in 1986)
- SBGW-9000 (2nd class sleeper, later reclassified as KT-67700 in 1986)
- FW/AC-9000 (dining car, later reclassified as KM1-67700 in 1986)
As the time progresses, however, Bima was downgraded into an ordinary train with mixture of sleeper and seat coaches in 1986, and finally lost its sleeper coaches after rationalization of passenger trains done by Perusahaan Umum Kereta Api (or Perumka, the later form of Indonesian Railways in 1990s). The end of sleeper train in Indonesia was the early 2000s, when Senja Utama Solo was downgraded into overnight train with seat coaches only, as social problems became the reason for discontinuation of sleeper coaches in Indonesia. Although the current PT Kereta Api Indonesia launched the "brand new" sleeper coaches based on stainless steel-bodied coaches procured in 2018 and 2019, it is essentially an ordinary seat coach equipped with specially-designed seats that could be converted into simple bed, which was thought to be an adoption of airplane's first class seats in passenger coaches.
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