2017: Operations Begin for a Railway Station in Indonesia’s Province of West Java

October 7, 2017

Operations began for a railway station in West Java, which has the distinction of being the Republic of Indonesia’s most populous province and is based in the western part of the island of Java. This station is located specifically in the administrative district of Bekasi Timur (East Bekasi) in West Java’s city of Bekasi.

Bekasi Timur station (BKST) was built to help accommodate the ever-increasing number of train passengers traveling to, from, and within West Java’s most populous city. Budi Karya Sumadi (born in 1956), who served as Indonesia’s minister of transportation from 2016 to 2024, formally inaugurated the station.  

BKST is owned by PT Kereta Api Indonesia (Persero), the country’s main state-owned railway entity; and operated by that company’s subsidiary PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia (more widely known as KAI Commuter).  

The KAI Commuter rail route serving BKST is the Cikarang Loop Line (officially called the Cikarang Commuter Line). This 57-mile (91-kilometer)-long line is a major link between the administrative city of North Jakarta in the Special Capital Region of Jakarta; and the town of Cikarang in the Bekasi Regency (separate from the eponymous city) in West Java.

Photo Credit: Syaifan Bahtiar Nirwansyah (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Bekasi Timur station (BKST), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekasi_Timur_railway_station