Whoosh, Southeast Asia’s First High-Speed Train, Links Jakarta and Bandung

Indonesia opened the first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia in October 2023. The line, called Whoosh, runs between Jakarta and Bandung, the capital of West Java. Trial running with passengers began in September and commercial service started on 17 October 2023.

The line

The railway is 142.8 kilometres long and has four stations: Halim in east Jakarta, Karawang, Padalarang and Tegalluar, on the eastern edge of Bandung. Trains run at up to 350 kilometres an hour. The journey takes around 35 to 45 minutes, against about three hours by the old railway and often longer by road.

The trains are eleven sets of a type derived from China’s CR400AF and built by CRRC at Qingdao. The line is operated by Kereta Cepat Indonesia China, a company owned 60 per cent by Indonesian state firms and 40 per cent by a Chinese railway group. It cost about US$7.3 billion. The name is an acronym of an Indonesian phrase meaning time saving, optimal operation, outstanding system, chosen also for the sound. The service carried about six million passengers in 2024.

For travellers

Neither terminus is in a city centre. Halim station is reached from central Jakarta by the LRT or by taxi. For Bandung, most visitors leave the train at Padalarang, where a connecting diesel service runs to the old central station in about twenty minutes and is included in the fare. Tegalluar is more useful for the east of the city.

Tickets are sold through the operator’s app and at the stations, in three classes.

Why go to Bandung

Bandung stands at about 700 metres and is cooler than the capital. The Dutch built it up in the 1920s and 1930s as a planned city, and it keeps one of the best collections of Art Deco buildings in Asia, among them the Savoy Homann hotel and the Villa Isola. Around it are tea plantations and the crater of Tangkuban Perahu. It has long been a weekend escape for Jakartans. The train makes it a simple day trip for a visitor staying in Jakarta, perhaps after seeing Museum MACAN.

A second phase, to Surabaya in East Java, has been studied. It belongs with other recent railways that have changed travel in the region, such as the line from Laos to China and the first metro in Ho Chi Minh City.