Hello,
Its nice to be back here after a small break. Coming back to show some of the recent work.
After the electrification was sanctioned the 100% Diesel section of Makalidurga was spoiled with the invasion of Electric locomotives.
I was lucky to have captured the freights with diesels. Nothing can beat the chugging, roaring sounds of these diesel locomotives.
Gooty WDG4 twins with Cement rake.
Pune WDM-3D twins with BCNA rake.
Video of the action captured at this place is below :
Hello everybody,
When ever a new locomotive is allotted to any shed, its a very big occasion for both the shed people and also the rail interested people. I witnessed similar scenes recently when KRISHNARAJAPURAM(KJM) diesel shed inaugurated its new WDP-4D locomotive 40226.
The pooja and flagging off was done inside the shed only and was later informed that it would take the evening passenger service to Arsikere.
All the railfans were thrilled and everybody was heading to Bangalore City Railway station to witness this decorated beast.
I waited for a long time at MWM so capture this first up and then head towards SBC. But this was held up at YPR and first my passenger to SBC arrived, with no other choice I took the passenger and got down at SBC. I saw all officials ready and set for the testing of the loco on its first run. They were having all the details of what needs to be and how it needs to be done.
Few minutes after the SBC-HUP pass departed the decorated celebrity 40226 made a grand entry into the station. (See the above pic)
The loco was the centre of attraction at SBC. All were clicking pics and taking a look at the new member of KJM DLS.
Coupling was done as soon as the loco arrived and it was ready to depart for its first run. The other side of the loco was being decorated further.
Centre of attraction :) :)
After 15-20 min of set up everything was ready. I decided to do a short run behind this loco till the next halt MWM. I boarded the first coach and was ready to enjoy the run behind this.
I captured the first departure and short run till MWM .
Later we got the news that after departing from YPR loco faced some lube oil shortage issues and had to be sent in shut down mode till ASK with another ALCo 14012R as a rescue loco.
The excitement was short terminated actually !!!
Loco came back to shed the next day light. The basic check ups were made and then the loco was sent out for testing with another new entrant 40228 along with it.
Video link of the testing, part 1 SBC to TK :
The twins were sent till Tumkur as a part of the testing session to test all aspect and also the speed on this section.
The twins were sent back by afternoon as per the request of the KJM DLS.
Video link of the testing on the return, TK to SBC part 2 :
Hope that the testing results were positive and we wish to see these locomotives in action as soon as possible.
28-May-2015
It was a boring week , nothing much was happening. Me and my friend Natarajan decided to do a short up and down trip to a near by place and finalized the place as HOSUR .
As per the plan we started from our regular meet up place , Malleswaram (MWM).
Our train to Hosur was the 76523 YPR-HSRA DEMU !!
And the return train was 56513 Karaikal Bangalore city Fast passenger !!
Mr.12119 was running slightly late so I quickly made it to the counter to take the tickets and head towards YPR side of the platform !!
It started to rain but lasted for a short period of time !!
UBL 20026 skipped MWM leading the late running 12726 Siddaganga ICE .
Running almost 1 hr late , our train to the next station SBC-TK pass finally entered PF-2 .
We boarded the train and entered YPR on PF-1.
At YPR :
The TK bound pass left and we were waiting for the Nelamangala pass and few min later he made it to YPR with KJM's piglet 12646 in lead.
We were now given the starter and ready to proceed :)
Our train departed from PF-3 as me and 12119 took some photos of locomotives doing their respective duties. A pleasant spotting was the BZA WAM-4 which was resting at the yard with the YPR-Hatia SF rake.
One more interesting spotting at the yard : Baldie and the Ex-Baldie :)
We slowly entered the Hebbal line and negotiated the big YPR curve.
We made the first three scheduled halts at LOGH, HEB and BAND. Due to the dirty and risky nature of the area I preferred to keep my cam inside and just watch our train pass through these places.
We finally started to belt after departing from BAND.
Next halt was the beautiful looking Belandur Road , covered by huge trees on both the sides.
Life after retirement :
We departed after a 1 min halt and started to hurtle again at MPS.
Our next halt was Karmelaram.
We depart after a 2 min halt as a family heads back home :
Moving on , our next halt was yet another calm and beautiful station by name Heelalige.
As we depart , Station Master comes out and does what he is ought to do when a train departs or skips the station .
After departing and touching the MPS , we zip over the NH .
As we head towards the next halt, Anekal road I had a good time seeing this small child giving all kinds of expressions as he was getting bored and waiting to get down and go home.
There are buses to these places but trust me train is far more comfortable and better than travelling in these BMTC buses as they struggle and take hell lot of time to get through the mad traffic on this route.
We were constantly hitting this speed and we along with other passengers were enjoying the greenery around the tracks .....
We were given loop line signal as the main line was blocked by a Plasser .
After being made to wait for 5 min and still signal being Danger, we were expecting a crossing to take place but were in confusion as main line was blocked by the Plasser. But after sometime when we looked back the Plasser was standing on our track and signal for the main line was a GREEN :)
Scenes that are more common in Konkan railways as told by my friend Natarajan.
As soon as we saw this we were expecting the Yellow WDG-4 12016 to turn up that we had planned to capture at HSRA.
And our guess was correct , it was UBL WDG-4 twins with an empty BRNA rake and the yellow fellow was trailing.
Immediately after this freight crossed us , it was proceed for us and all the aspects of signal were in one frame at Anekal road.
We are almost near and curving towards the state border.
And finally we enter our destination Hosur almost,bang on time.
The fellow that brought us here :
A temple on the top of a hill as seen from the station .. :
After getting down, I was roaming around looking at the station as Natarajan went onto the other side to take the return tickets.
Earlier plan was to take the same DEMU back to YPR but as we missed the yellow WDG4 at HSRA and with no further action at that place we decided to take the 56513 Karaikal SBC fast passenger to SBC.
After 2-3 times of announcement , train finally made a grand entry into the station.
And takes PF-2 which was very crowded ...
Even though the train was crowded we decided to take it as we got a railfan seat in the first coach.
We started off after 2 min of stoppage and the LP was an aggressive one who started to MPS in no time.
At the Anekal Home signal we were made to stop for 10-15 min due to the welding work .
Video of the work can be seen here :
We departed after that 15 min stoppage and then started off towards SBC with all scheduled halts that I mentioned earlier.
We crossed the 17235 SBC-NCJ express which has a RSA with Sheshadri express .
Both the trains set off towards their respective destinations , after a very nice blast and speedy run we were stopped at the BYPL home signal for around 50 min to make way for the AJJ-SBC pass and this wait was the most boring one and also the journey from here to SBC took us almost 2hrs which was the worst part.
Finally after this long wait we were given signal at around 19.05 hrs.
After departing from BYPL , we were again made to wait for around 25min at BNCE outer.
ED WAP-4 crossed us with Ernakulam weekly and then MLY Twins met us at BNC with legendary Karnataka express.
We got a through signal to enter SBC and we took PF-1 at SBC and finally the journey came to an end.
Except for the final part everything else was just perfect.
We then saw the SBC RAJ departure led by 20041 and also the off link 20042 with Rani Chennamma express. We then had a small walk around the SBC station looking for any rare links and finally left SBC at 20.50 hrs.
Hope you guys had a good time going through the details of my trip :) :)
Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi is one of the famous and fastest train to MAS . Many people prefer this train as the time slot it has been placed is very convenient and apt for people to reach their destination in the shortest possible time .
WDP-4 !! For most people in India especially the Railfans , any mention of this word would first bring to mind the image of that in LHF - Long hood Forward mode . Such is the elegance and striking pose it provides in that mode. Add to that the sound it produces with its 16 cylinder 710G3B engine that sounds just like the Boeing Aircraft is just mesmerizing . I as a travel freak and train lover , admire this loco to the peak.
The WDP4 is capable of hauling 24 coach trains at 110-120 kmph speeds.The loco is also very fuel efficient and is better than ALCo locomotives thanks to the 2 stroke high efficiency diesel engine .
My Favourite loco in this class is WDP-4 20005 that is homed at Hubli DLS and that was one of the few loco's to be imported when IR first started to use these loco's .
Gooty WDG4 twins with Cement rake.
