The survey crews came upon this narrow gauge jungle railway when laying out the survey grid. It was a mystery to us initially as it appeared to start to the south of the Seria bypass and head further south into the jungle. It didn't appear to intersect with the Seria bypass, it ended some way before it reached the road.
Closer inspection showed it had headed further north at some time but the rails and ties had been lifted and the jungle allowed to grow back to hide it's existence from anyone driving down the bypass. The reason for this was the same reason our lines were not cut all the way back to the road – to hide the existence of this easy entryway into the jungle for the casual curious passerby. The best way to preserve the jungle was to limit the number of access points.
I never went to the far end of this jungle railway but I understand it ended at an abandoned logging camp. If you look at the Google Satellite view of the jungle inland from Seria you can clearly make out several areas where the primary growth of jungle has been logged and what is there now is secondary growth.
It had clearly been raining the morning I took this photo. I wonder, looking at the tracks, how many derailments they had to cope with. I guess that the two logs in this photo fell off a car and they didn't have the means of reloading them.
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