For many commuters, the electric train or KRL is just another means of transportation. But for others, the KRL is a way of life, even an object of affection and a source of inspiration.

For Anna Dwiyana, a 40-year-old Indonesia Stock Exchange employee, the electric train was the place where she found love. She met her husband inside a KRL coach on the express line between Bogor and Jakarta.

“When I was still single, then my future husband and I went to our offices every day using the KRL at the same time,” she smiled.

“I knew him on the train through my friend who was also a colleague and fellow passenger. I knew him for three years before we got married,” Anna said.

Another commuter, Setiyo Bardono, a 33-year-old who works in Central Jakarta, expressed his strong affection for the train through poetry.

His poems titled I Love You Completely, My Train, Iron Snake and Guide My Steps to your Counter have been published in national newspapers.

Setiyo, who uses the KRL from Depok to Gondangdia stations every day, also likes drawing batik motifs using a train theme. One batik picture is called Numpakreta, which means “using the train”.

“I like to see the drama of life that goes on inside the KRL railway coaches from a different perspective. When it’s observed, the rhythm of the railway coach resembles the patterns on batik cloth, which are uniform and keep repeating,” he said.

The stories are just some of the thousands that are related by the members of an organisation called KRL-Mania. Since the mailing list group KRL-Mania was established in 2003, this online community has gained a membership of more than 3,500. They are all KRL commuters living in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, also known as Jabodetabek.

If you get a chance to read the dense email traffic that fills this group’s mailboxes, you will surely shake your head, wrinkle your brows or even smile with amusement when you read the messages.

There are some who share tales about robbers, fierce ticket inspectors, double deckers, even messages about trying to match a woman on the Jakarta-Depok route with a man who is a passenger on the Jakarta-Bekasi route.

According to Agus Imansyah, 38, one of the founders of the KRL-Mania, the list was first started as a way of sharing information about the KRL.

Almost at once it also became a tool for educating KRL passengers about their rights and obligations during the trip.

“A long time ago, there were many passengers who liked sitting in the engine driver’s cabin because they were too lazy to buy a ticket at the ticket counter. Of course both were violating the regulations. Admonishing people with rude words was not the appropriate way. Finally, we chose to promote the issue through the mailing list,” said Agus.

Apart from the mailing list, another tactic which has been used by the KRL-Mania to reach KRL passengers who aren’t on the mailing list is through the website www.krlmania.com, which was launched in 2005.

“There are more than 500,000 KRL passengers using the Jabodetabek lines every day. It is impossible that they can all be handled through the mailing list. So we built that website in order to make information more widely available,” said Agus, who works at a government bank on Jl Sudirman.

Apart from doing business in the virtual world, the next step taken by KRL-Mania at that time was to print dozens of stickers that have been posted at a number of stations.

Catchy phrases are written on the stickers, such as “Those who are smart buy a ticket, those who are well dressed buy a subscription. Those who are smart and well-dressed can be found on KRL-Mania@yahoogroups.com.”

“The result has been quite effective. Many passengers no longer use the locomotive driver’s cabin. Now there are many people who feel ashamed if they haven’t bought a ticket, while before they didn’t care if they were using the train without a ticket; they just paid whatever to the train inspector,” said Agus.

Together with railway company PT KA, the members of KRL-Mania have also designed stickers advertising priority seats. These are special seats for pregnant women, old people, handicapped passengers, and mothers with babies.

“We feel it’s necessary to set aside priority seats because at that time many male passengers pretended that they didn’t know when a pregnant woman was using the train. They didn’t give her a seat, just pretended not to notice or kept their heads down, reading,” said Agus critically.

“After the priority seats were advertised, I noticed a change in people’s behavior. Even, when the train is full, sometimes there are people who deliberately leave the priority seat empty. They choose to sit on the floor on a newspaper.”

The cooperation between the KRL-Mania community group as the service user and the railway company did not happen at once. Once every three months the community holds a meeting with the company officials to pass on passengers’ complaints and discuss the problems that happen with the trains.

“For example we discuss cases of robbery, power blackouts in the trains, ticket prices, and plans to stop operating the economy train and others,” Agus said.

The proof of the effectiveness of their activities came early last year, when the train company set up the KRL Care Centre as the passenger information centre.

“Now the facility is complete. Apart from using SMS, information can also be accessed through a phone hotline, fax and email,” said Agus.

Getting in touch

Apart from their efforts to fix the condition of their beloved transportation system, many mailing list members of KRL-Mania also meet in the real world.

“These are spontaneous affairs, not routinely held. For example, we hold meetings about different tourist attractions, futsal sport competitions or we break our fasts together,” explained Anna, who holds the treasurer’s position in this online community.

Twice a year they also get together to collect education contributions to be given to the children of the barrier officials, the workers who wash the trains and the train guards.

Last year, many members of KRL-Mania visited the Manggarai railway depot at Depok, which is believed to be the biggest train depot in Southeast Asia. The visit wasn’t just attended by the members but also by their families.

“Since we use the train everyday, we wanted to know what goes on inside the depot. At that time there was even an expat from Japan called Hamada who got involved. He came from his house in Permata Hijau to take part in our event and found out for himself the location of Depok Lama Station,” said Agus.

That year, KRL-Mania together with some other similar organisations took part in a retracing-the-trails event, as far as 9kms from Kota Station in West Jakarta to Tanjung Priok Station in North Jakarta.

“We walked past people’s houses at the edge of the track, including the road above the bridge that crosses the river. That was exciting and triggered the adrenalin,” said Agus.

“After these gatherings our interest in using the trains has increased more and more. We also want many more people to use the KRL than private cars. It will be good if we can reduce energy consumption, traffic jams and pollution.” (By NAYU NOVITA/ The Jakarta Post/ AsiaNews)